


a place where i sink to sleeping

by pepperfield



Category: Naruto
Genre: Cohabitation, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Falling In Love, Fluff, Gen, M/M, Marriage of Convenience, Minor Haruno Sakura/Yamanaka Ino, Minor Hyuuga Hinata/Uzumaki Naruto, Officially Married, Post-Fourth Shinobi War, Slow Build, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:07:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 29,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23723563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pepperfield/pseuds/pepperfield
Summary: “I suppose I chose you since it wouldn’t inconvenience you too much to move into the Hokage residence. It’s quite close to the Academy, as you know.”“Of course,” Iruka says, nodding slowly. “That’s the best reason for any couple to get married, really. The convenience of their future housing arrangements.”The Rokudaime is in need of a husband and Iruka is eminently available.
Relationships: Dai-nana-han | Team 7 & Hatake Kakashi, Hatake Kakashi/Umino Iruka, Umino Iruka & Uzumaki Naruto
Comments: 117
Kudos: 461





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello!! This fic is pure self-indulgence. I beg you to forgive the shakiness of the premise and my disregard for the post-manga timeline and my non-comprehension of Konoha's geography and its politics. Please let me know if you have any questions/concerns! Thanks for reading!!

“You need to find a spouse, Kakashi-sama,” Shizune says, and Kakashi almost laughs her out of the room.

He signs off on one (1) entire piece of overdue paperwork before he realizes that she’s still standing in front of his desk wearing her serious face. He lets his pen roll to a stop on his endless pile of forms and folds his hands in front of his face.

“Now, I really don’t think that’s true. I’m very happy being alone, you know.” He’s gotten quite good at it over his lifetime. Besides, he’s certain that he secured his standing as an ineligible bachelor long ago. Is his dubious adherence to social convention and his laundry list of trauma no longer enough to scare people off?

Shizune sighs and rubs at her forehead tiredly. “Normally, I wouldn’t disagree, but I think you’d prefer to pick your own partner over what the new daimyo has planned for you.”

Ah. He can see her gearing up to launch into an explanation, and he stands abruptly. She pauses.

“You may have a point, Shizune. Unfortunately, I have a meeting to attend with T&I so you’ll have to tell me more about it later. But keep up the good work, as usual. Bye!”

He gives her a jaunty wave and jumps backward out the window, ready to disperse some clones to throw her off his scent. If she can’t catch him, she can’t tell him whatever nonsensical thing the daimyo wants him to do.

“Kakashi-sama!” Shizune yells as he lands. “You have nowhere to run! That meeting is being held in your office!”

Damn.

\--

After his meeting, Kakashi immediately increases his productivity by 250%, and gets so swamped giving out missions and reading funding requests and approving personnel changes that Shizune is unable to hound him about this marriage business because she’s equally busy helping put out their assorted day-to-day fires. He manages to get through three days of avoidance due to the sheer volume of his work backlog, but by Friday, things have settled down again, which leaves her too many openings.

“About the daimyo-”

“Sorry, Shizune, but these new zoning plans won’t approve themselves-”

It’s a testament to how desperate she is that she’s willing to physically throw herself between him and his paperwork. For the depth of her dedication, and also so that she doesn’t have a breakdown one day and try to chuck him off Hokage Rock in a fit of downtrodden assistant rage, he finally puts aside his pen and looks readily up at her.

“He wants to arrange a marriage between you and one of his children,” she blurts before he can change his mind.

Kakashi nods in understanding. “Ah, well, I’ll have to send him a ‘no, thank you’ scroll. I suppose I could do it in person, if I must.” Just in case, he roots around his desk for one of his nicest new scrolls, but Shizune tugs it out of his grasp.

“This isn’t exactly a negotiable situation, Kakashi-sama. He’s already talked about setting up an omiai with one of his daughters.”

It’s such a pain that Kakashi doesn’t even remember to remind Shizune to drop the honorifics. “I...am not attracted to women?” he tries, and she shakes her head grimly.

“He has sons, too.”

Kakashi curses under his breath before leaning back in his chair. If he’s willing to marry off a son, then the man isn’t after some kind of claim to the Hatake bloodline. “Why exactly is he so insistent on this?”

“I think he believes it’s... _untoward_ for the leader of Konohagakure to be unmarried. He thinks it would elevate our status if you got that fixed.”

“Tsunade wasn’t married.”

“Well, he wasn’t daimyo yet when Tsunade-sama was Hokage. Also,” and she tries to suppress a smile, “would you be stupid enough to bring up that topic with her?” No, Kakashi most certainly would not. Well, not unless he was extremely bored and wanted to take his chances with the afterlife.

“Can’t the council do something about this?” he says plaintively. He’s aware it’s ridiculous for him to be whining at his assistant, but she’s seen him do much worse. 

She shakes her head. “I don’t think they care enough to fight it. Besides, a concession here means…”

“That we can try to use it as leverage the next time the daimyo asks for something ridiculous?” 

“That’s what they’re hoping. Also,” and she pauses for a moment to give him an apologetic look, “I think they’re hoping that marriage would...settle you down?”

“I thought I was quite settled already.” He’s got eight ninken, he cooks his own meals, and he returns all his library books on time these days. He’s basically a functional person.

“It took you over a year to finally take office, you have one of the highest rates of hospital truancy, and you almost assigned _yourself_ an S-class mission the other day because you were bored of reading expense reports,” she counters, her hands on her hips. He doesn’t really have much of a rebuttal, so she continues, “They think you could do with a better half to think these decisions through with you.”

“And that person just so happens to be the daimyo’s spawn?”

“Don’t call them spawn,” she hisses, looking around furtively. “But, look, the daimyo is a family man above all. I think he’d like to tie you to his lineage if possible, but even more than that, he just wants to know he’s left Konoha in the hands of a, um, like-minded person.”

“Thus, your suggestion that I find myself a spouse,” he says. She brings up a good point; he would much rather choose someone himself than let some poor civilian get shackled to him. “And anybody will do?”

“Well, I think anyone you choose who’s also, ah-”

“Willing to put up with me?” he offers when she can’t figure out a way to put it diplomatically.

She laughs, and places the scroll back on the table. “Something like that. Anyway, that theoretical person is probably someone most people would accept, and perhaps even approve of.”

Kakashi hums, trying to think of someone who’d be willing to go along with this farce. The marriage will have to last at least until Naruto relieves him of his duties, and who knows how many more years that could be? Trying to tie one of his few friends to him that long seems like a monumental waste of effort.

“I understand your plan, Shizune, but I’m not convinced it’s worth the trouble. What’s the worst he could do to me if I decide not to marry at all? Make me _stop_ being Hokage?” he laughs. Everyone in the village knows he’d take that deal in a heartbeat.

“He could reject your choice of successor.”

At this, he raises his eyebrows. “He would refuse the Savior of the World?”

She smiles a bit wryly. “I’m not going to claim I understand how the daimyo thinks! But you also know the kind of everyday trouble he and company could make for us.”

He does know. Overwrought demands for extra protective services, demanding shinobi for frivolous uses of their time, and whatever other kind of nonsense enters a rich man’s mind. The kind of stuff that his often overworked shinobi do not want to deal with.

With a sigh, he moves his next bundle of requests in front of him. If he stalls long enough, he might come up with some way to wriggle out of this. 

“Alright, I’ll put some thought into it,” he tells her as he begins scanning a proposal to convert one of the old training fields to a wind farm.

“Please do,” she says as she starts walking to her own desk and almost gets run over by an over-enthusiastic visitor.

“Good morning, Shizune-san, Kakashi-san! I have the writeup about the Academy’s social-emotional learning initiative, as well as class 3’s latest first aid test results,” Umino Iruka says brightly, as if he isn’t carrying ten times the amount of paper that he claims to be. This is why Kakashi’s meetings with the Academy’s vice-principal always run long: Iruka is really too dedicated. And has so many interesting new ideas to implement. And knows how to spin the kinds of stories about pre-genin and (post?)-genin that always make Kakashi laugh and forget about his workload for a little while. “Sorry about that, Shizune-san, I really should know to slow down by now. With all the people coming and going, one day I’m sure to fling scrolls all over somebody important,” Iruka says, smiling at her as she gapes at him.

“Yes, please don’t give any of our diplomats a papercut, sensei,” Kakashi drawls, reveling in the way Iruka just rolls his eyes.

“Oh! Iruka-sensei!” Shizune says, her eyes growing wide. At first Kakashi thinks it’s just because they both forgot about his weekly meeting, but then she turns back toward him and jerks a thumb in Iruka’s direction.

Kakashi’s eyes widen too, and he looks Iruka up and down as if seeing him for the first time. Huh. Might as well give it a try.

“Maa, would you like to marry me, Iruka-sensei?”

\--

“Let me get this straight,” Iruka says as he breaks his disposable chopsticks apart and shaves the splinters onto the floor of the highest office of the land. It was Kakashi’s turn to buy lunch this time, but since he forgot, his restaurant choice was forfeit and he was forced to get Ichiraku again. They’re seated on the floor, because Iruka hates it when Kakashi uses jutsu to clear his desk of clutter like his laptop, and because they threw decorum out the window a few years back after another one of Naruto’s hair-raising adventures that found them both drooping at a bar and bemoaning their dear, pig-headed, iron-willed student. Kakashi would say that Iruka is a surprisingly noisy drunk, but then again, he’s heard the way the other man can yell, whether at students trying to steal test answers or jounin who can’t follow simple filing instructions.

Kakashi watches as he inhales a third of his bowl before setting it aside and folding his hands on his lap. There’s a small scar across the knuckle of Iruka’s right thumb that always catches his eye when he watches Iruka mark exams, or grab Naruto’s shoulder, or fold up scrap paper. He wonders sometimes if the injury came from a mission, of the everyday dangers of teaching small humans with sharp objects.

“You’re going to get married off to one of the daimyo’s daughters unless you go find someone yourself?” Kakashi would say the barely hidden amusement in Iruka’s voice is uncalled for, but he knows it isn’t.

“One of the daimyo’s sons, rather.”

“Right, my apologies. So our wise and mighty lord, like most of the people who have ever found themselves in charge of you, has finally realized that you’re something of a menace?”

“That’s your Hokage you’re disparaging,” Kakashi tsks at him. “Be careful. I wouldn’t want you to be accused of treason.”

“Please tell him I’m very sorry and I didn’t mean to hurt his feelings,” Iruka says demurely before bowing his head and pretending they don’t both know he’s holding back a laugh.

Kakashi just sighs. “Besides, I don’t think ‘menace’ really covers it. ‘Public health risk’ or ‘known toxic hazard’ would fit better.”

“That’s enough self-deprecation for one day,” Iruka scolds. Kakashi shrugs before taking a few slow bites of his own lunch while Iruka busies himself with separating out the things he wants to talk about first from his pile of work. He pointedly does not look at Kakashi’s bare face until he’s certain that the mask is back on. Even if Kakashi were to call his name, he would stare at the ceiling for the entire conversation until Kakashi told him he could look again. Kakashi thinks it started around the fourth time they met for an occasional meal, and has since carried over to their weekly lunch meetings.

It’s become something of a game. An inverse to the one he used to play with Team 7. No matter what he tries, Iruka will avert his eyes to avoid seeing Kakashi’s face. At this point, he’s certain that nothing short of an actual enemy attack would work, but it’s fun to try regardless.

“It’s safe to look again,” Kakashi tells him when they both finish lunch, and Iruka turns back. Oddly enough, he always trusts Kakashi not to lie — or perhaps it’s more accurate to say that Iruka trusts Kakashi to know whether he really wants his face to be seen or not.

“Will you be wearing the mask in front of your new husband, too?”

“That depends on you, I think.”

Iruka laughs at first, and then falls into silence when he notices Kakashi hasn’t told him any other jokes. “Wait. Were you serious?” He’s cute when he’s surprised: mouth hanging a bit open and his eyes unblinking as his hands hover in place like he doesn’t know what to do with them.

“I was and I am,” Kakashi says, and to his surprise it’s not a lie. If he has to marry somebody, Iruka is as good a candidate as any. Better than most, probably, given his kind personality and good standing among their fellow citizens. There isn’t really much reason for the daimyo to complain at all if Kakashi were to marry Iruka. From a more emotional standpoint, there’s one quality so intrinsic to Iruka that it makes him feel, irrationally, like an ideal marriage candidate.

“You truly are your own particular brand of trouble, aren’t you?” Iruka sighs, but his eyes look fond. Even half a year ago he would have apologized after getting in his verbal jabs, but Kakashi thinks their friendship has progressed past that point by now. It’s funny how proximity and a common struggle can bring people together.

“Imagine hearing that from the former terror tornado of Sandaime’s regime.”

“My glory days are over,” Iruka denies, as if he didn’t terrorize shinobi who turned in subpar paperwork for years. “Anyway, I find it hard to believe that you’re going along with this. You can’t possibly mean to just let it happen.”

“Do you think I would have proposed to you without meaning it, Iruka-sensei?” Kakashi says, probably teasing more than he ought to. True to form, Iruka’s brown skin takes on the slightest hint of flush as he waves one hand sheepishly in the air.

“I- no, that isn’t quite what I meant. I just thought that there must be some kind of deal you can make with him instead.”

“I’m not much of a politician.” He’s barely a Hokage, most days. Kakashi is, first and foremost, a soldier, and then possibly a teacher, though jury’s still half out on whether that was a good call or not. And then, for some abysmal reason, he’s the person the rest of his village turns to when they have no other widely revered person to force into leadership, so here he is. “As it is, Shizune’s plan is the easiest way to get out of this without giving up anything I wouldn’t want to further down the line. And I suppose married life wouldn’t be so disagreeable. So. Since it’s come to this, won’t you consider marrying me? I promise I won’t be the worst husband.”

“What an overwhelming endorsement. Are you sure you’re serious about this, Kakashi-san?” Iruka asks, and the humor in his voice has been replaced with signature concern.

“As serious as I have to be. Which, regretfully, is probably more than I want to. But yes. If I must be wed, I would prefer you as a partner, if you’re willing to accept.”

Iruka mulls this over for a moment, looking pensive. His gaze goes distant, looking past Kakashi as he gathers his thoughts.

“I’ll warn you: I’m not a very good cook,” is what he finally says. This is only a bit surprising; Kakashi used to assume that Iruka would have learned to properly feed himself after becoming orphaned at a young age, but from the rare homemade bentos he’s seen Iruka eat, his crude cooking skills are those of a busy bachelor.

“That’s fine, I can teach you.”

“You’ll be opening up your home to visits from Naruto at any hour of the day,” Iruka warns next. This is completely unsurprising. Kakashi knows that they’ve never actually filed any paperwork, but in all the ways that matter, Iruka adopted Naruto long ago. In turn, Naruto adopted him right back, so there’s no doubt that in the near future Kakashi will be getting an earful from his dear student/successor about trying to steal away his precious Iruka-sensei. 

Still, he thinks with full affection, he wouldn’t really mind. “I can accept that. We can catch up on our missed bonding time.”

Iruka smiles at this, as he always does when he talks about his child. “Well, I’m also terribly messy.” This is just a lie.

Kakashi rests his chin in one hand as he asks, “Why bother lying when I’ve been inside your apartment before?” Only briefly once or twice, but still, he remembers well enough what it looked like. “Your spaces are ‘comfortably lived in’ at most. And I know you can’t stand dust or grime.”

“You caught me,” Iruka says, but he doesn’t sound particularly contrite. He studies Kakashi’s face for a long moment, his steady brown eyes searching him for something that Kakashi can’t name. Kakashi’s guard isn’t any higher than it typically is (which is probably still higher than most other shinobi, but that’s unavoidable), and Iruka’s gaze isn’t pointed in any way — if anything, he seems to expect whatever it is he finds.

“Alright, I’m in,” he declares.

Kakashi hesitates at the finality in his tone. “That’s a bit impulsive.”

There’s a certain grin that Iruka has that only surfaces rarely, likely because it would be dangerous for his students to know what a troublemaker he truly is. Kakashi gets the great honor of seeing it today. “I don’t overthink things unless it’s about my students. Besides, you weren’t frightened off by any of my warnings, so I suppose there’s no reason for me to decline your offer. Let’s get married.”

This is progressing faster than Kakashi planned for. In the field, he would improvise, but this isn’t the field. This is something much more daunting. “But don’t you want to think it over further? There’s plenty of time for you to decide. This will upend your lifestyle for at least five to ten years, if not more. Besides, you’re quite popular around town, sensei. Don’t you have aspirations to meet someone and start a family of your own?”

“Why didn’t you ask me any of those questions before I agreed?” Iruka says, laughing even though he’s wearing his usual exasperation.

“I, uh-” didn’t think Iruka was really actually going to agree, “-wasn’t sure I would get this far in one day.”

“Let me ask _you_ , then, Kakashi-san,” Iruka says with more patience than he normally has when Kakashi talks him in circles. “Do _you_ want to marry _me_?”

“I- yes. I do.” The words make it sound simple, and perhaps it is. Kakashi has a need, and Iruka can meet it. That’s all there is to it.

“Then we’re getting married. Congratulations to us.”

This should be some kind of turning point in Kakashi’s life, but he just feels some mix of relief and resignation, as if he’s on a mission that’s gone just sideways enough to be irritating, but not enough to be truly worrying. 

“Sorry, I have no sake on hand for a toast,” he says stupidly, and Iruka just laughs at him again. 

“I’d be worried if you did. Now, if you don’t mind, I really do want to talk to you about the SEL plans.” Back to actual business. Blankly, Kakashi follows along.

They discuss Academy affairs for over an hour before they decide they should each be getting back to work. Their staff know to expect these meetings to run long by now, ever since Iruka successfully passed the vice-principal’s exam and started taking on some of the administrative duties. Kakashi would prefer to stay on the Academy’s good side, so he promises Iruka to look over the remaining proposals on his own time and allow him to return to work.

“Let me walk you back,” Kakashi offers as they head toward the door. He would have done so regardless, unless Iruka requested he not, but saying so out loud seems the decorous thing to do.

“Please don’t put yourself out if you’re busy,” Iruka says as they exit. He waves at Shizune, who continues scribbling away on a scroll but watches them like a hawk as they go.

“No, I would like to, if it’s all the same.”

“Oh. Alright, then.”

They stroll in silence for a few minutes and Kakashi takes the chance to look at his companion, to see if he can read anything in his expression that would explain why he’s decided to go along with Kakashi’s request. But he doesn’t notice anything unusual besides the vague sense of exasperated amusement that he’s come to associate with his friend by now. Since Iruka tends to wear his heart on his sleeve, Kakashi finds it even more bizarre that Iruka doesn’t seem to have strong feelings either way about this situation at all.

They’re almost back to the Academy offices when Iruka turns and breaks their companionable quiet.

“Could I just ask you one question?”

“You can ask as many as you like. I can’t guarantee that I’ll answer, though.”

Iruka nods, and fiddles with the corner of one of his reports. “Right now I just have one. Why did you choose me?” His eyes are curious when they meet Kakashi’s.

Why indeed? Kakashi scratches at his hair as the half-formed reasons coalesce in his brain. It isn’t just that Iruka wandered conveniently into the middle of his conversation with Shizune, but before he commits, is there anyone who would be better?

“Well, I could ask Gai, but he’d turn me down and then give me a long speech about opening my heart to love.” Gai would never stand for helping Kakashi avoid the Passion of Youth and Pure Romance.

“Ah, of course. This sham is definitely a perversion of True Love.”

“Exactly. There’s Tenzou, I suppose, but I think he might eventually run away rather than have to deal with me every day.” It’s a silly joke. Tenzou would probably agree to the marriage out of duty, and Kakashi wouldn’t force him into that position. 

“And I wouldn’t?”

No, Iruka would just politely decline and then laugh at Kakashi for the rest of his life if he really hated the idea.

“You’re much too upfront to flee. You would just have me assassinated.”

This surprises a chuckle out of Iruka, who shakes his head and waves his hands vehemently in the air to dispel the notion. “I would never. I think it would be easier to legitimize a coup if you were disgraced but still alive.”

“I’m setting myself up for you to install your son on my throne, aren’t I?” Kakashi asks wryly.

“We both know he’ll end up there eventually,” Iruka says, and they grin at one another. “Still, it’s a bit too soon, I think. He’s still got a bit of growing up to do. And that’s crazy isn’t it? Considering everything he’s been through?”

“But it’s true,” Kakashi agrees. “Anyway, I suppose I chose you since it wouldn’t inconvenience you too much to move into the Hokage residence. It’s quite close to the Academy, as you know.” They’re walking the path at this very moment.

“Of course,” Iruka says, nodding slowly. “That’s the best reason for any couple to get married, really. The convenience of their future housing arrangements.”

“I’m glad you understand. See, we’re a good match already!”

“It looks that way, doesn’t it,” Iruka says with a crooked smile, and then he exhales sharply before nodding, as if centering himself again. “Well, thank you for considering me. I’ll do my best to live up to the part.” 

Iruka holds his hand out for a handshake, but Kakashi grabs hold with both his own and clasps it firmly in his grip. Even with his gloves in the way, he can still feel the calluses on Iruka’s fingertips and the warmth that radiates from his skin.

Kakashi isn’t one to withhold compliments if he finds them well-deserved, but it takes a certain vulnerability to explain to a man you’ve just asked to marry you that not only is he competent and reliable, but that he also, inexplicably, feels like home. Not on any personal level; Kakashi has only the memorial stone to welcome him back. But he’s seen countless times the way Iruka embraces Naruto when he comes tearing through the gates, and he’s noticed how Iruka has a kind word and a steadying hand for each of the children turned soldiers who still bloom under his attention even years later. It’s impossible not to think to himself, _this is the reason they do this_. _To have someone like you tell them that they’ve made it back, that they’ve done a good job protecting their loved ones. That they’ll continue to grow into the person you always knew they could be._

And it’s a fleeting thought that should never have taken root, but when Kakashi looks at Iruka now, waiting with that slightly worried patience for Kakashi to speak, he can’t help but wonder how it might feel to have Iruka to welcome him home. How it might be to grow accustomed to it.

“Really, you have my genuine gratitude, Iruka-sensei. This may not be the future you were hoping for, but I’ll do my best to be a decent companion. All I ask in exchange is a marriage the daimyo can’t object to.”

“I can’t tell if you’ve set the bar low or high, but I’ll give it my all.” With that, he bids Kakashi goodbye and returns to his office, leaving Kakashi to stare at the space he no longer occupies. 

Everyone that has ever been on a mission with Kakashi knows that he stays cool under pressure. Even in the heat of battle — or perhaps _especially_ in the heat of battle — he’s always thinking five steps ahead to prepare for any unfortunate eventuality. But here, in the post-war world, all those skills he honed, all that killer instinct and all those parts of himself he sharpened into a living weapon, are no better than decorative gilt. All shimmer and no substance when he’s making nice with other world leaders and shuffling back and forth from meeting to meeting with his arms laden with scrolls and books.

This marriage is one more strange piece in this puzzle of a world that Kakashi still isn’t certain he’s meant for. Does Iruka, who he finally thought he had begun to understand, fit in there too?

\--

They move forward with this harebrained plan. Shizune is overjoyed, and Shikamaru just shakes his head when the news is relayed to him, and then skulks out of the office to deal with his Shinobi Union work.

Naruto is away on a two-week mission, which means they’re putting off telling him until they can both be present as a united front. It’s kept under wraps from the rest of the village as well, at least until the wedding is over. Neither of them want it to be a public affair. The news will be announced to citizens afterwards.

In between their usual meetings, they’ve begun laying out expectations about what this marriage is going to entail. Iruka will move into the Hokage residence with Kakashi, but will keep his last name out of deference to his parents. Kakashi doesn’t personally care; he knows the weight of being the last of your lineage. They talk about finances over oyakodon and discuss the little legal details over steamed buns.

Iruka understands perfectly well that he’ll be expected now to accompany Kakashi to social events when the occasion calls for it. He also understands the uproar and public attention they’ll both be receiving in the months directly following their wedding. Regardless, he makes a face when Kakashi tells him as much.

“You already stop in the streets to talk to people every day.”

“Yes, but those are students. It’s very different,” Iruka stresses, waving his tiny spoon at Kakashi’s face. They’re eating shaved ice — actually, Iruka is eating melon shaved ice and Kakashi is drinking tea and watching with uncomfortable fascination as his fiancé ingests bright green syrup.

“Is it?” From his recollection, no one used to harass him in the streets more than his own little trio of hellions. Save for Gai, of course.

“You wouldn’t understand,” Iruka sighs at him after licking an errant speck of ice off his thumb. Kakashi tracks the motion with an intensity that he finds embarrassing when he catches himself doing it, and then he feels a weird rush of relief that he no longer has Obito’s sharingan. “You have a reputation. No one would dare bother the Copy-Nin while he’s out and about reading pornography in public, and now no one would dare do the same to the Rokudaime. Meanwhile, _I_ am already a fun and exciting target for parents and education enthusiasts, and this development only gives them more cause to hunt me down.”

Kakashi takes another measured sip of tea and deeply regrets wearing his ridiculous hat for this outing. Such is the price for trying to fit Iruka into his schedule after his visit to Suna.

“I can assign you a protective detail if you’d like. A couple of ANBU, just for you,” he offers, knowing exactly where Iruka will tell him to shove that suggestion.

As expected, Iruka calmly finishes his snack and then nonchalantly walks away without answering, sticking Kakashi with the bill.

  


Their other discussions go about as smoothly, which is to say that they’re more successful than expected, considering the amount of time they spend verbally poking each other for fun. They’re back in Kakashi’s office again, and Kakashi is sharpening all of Suzume-sensei’s pencils with a kunai because Shizune has gone home early today and can’t stop him from frittering away his time like a child. While discussing their living arrangements, they came to the agreement that they would share a bed. Iruka became adorably flustered about it at first, until Kakashi assured him that the bed was almost egregiously large and they wouldn’t even have to touch. This segued into a discussion about whether they should wear any obvious sign of their marriage besides their binding gifts, which serpentined into a talk about how married they needed to act while in public, and has now ended up here: with Kakashi trying to figure out the most polite way to tell his fiancé that he can sleep with other people should he so desire.

“You can still, ah. See other people at your discretion, if you wish,” he eventually mutters, with the same amount of enthusiasm he has for narrating Icha Icha out loud.

The strange noise that escapes Iruka’s mouth is indescribable, as is the sharp look Iruka levels at him. “Really? The Hokage’s husband has permission to open up their marriage bed to others?”

Kakashi stops in the middle of shaving off another sliver of wood from the pencil stub in his hands to think about this. “Hm. I can see why that might be...untraditional.”

“I don’t judge anyone whose marriage _is_ structured this way, but I get the feeling the daimyo might not feel the same way.”

“Alright, then you may _not_ continue seeing other people?”

This time, it’s just a regular snort that Iruka gives him. “That would just be a continuation of my current trajectory.”

“I’m in a similar boat,” Kakashi admits. There are about two dozen reasons why he hasn’t had a real relationship in years, and even as some of those reasons fade away, he finds it difficult to muster the energy or desire to change the situation.

“Then let’s say this: if either of us feels the need to look for... _more_ ,” and a dull flush settles into Iruka’s cheeks, “um, we will discuss terms with each other before making any decisions.”

“Sounds good to me,” Kakashi says, because he’s made do on his own or with the rare, occasional fling well enough since long ago, and this concession is more for Iruka’s sake than his own. After all, Iruka’s the one being suckered into this fake marriage.

They talk briefly about the possibility of eventual divorce once Naruto has taken the helm, but the discussion, while frank, leaves off on the decision that they’ll each sign a prenup and sort out the separation when the time comes. With that out of the way, their upcoming ceremony takes the forefront of the conversation.

No invitations have been sent yet, but they’re planning to hurry up and get it done in two months’ time. Kakashi can secure all the necessary leave time for everyone invited, so that isn’t a point of concern. However, he does bring up the option of doing a courthouse marriage just to get it out of the way quickly. Iruka considers this suggestion, but then reminds Kakashi that they’ll need witnesses regardless.

“I’d like Naruto to be there, if no one else.”

“He might legitimately try to kill me,” Kakashi mentions, mostly to be difficult, though his paranoia wouldn’t be unfounded. As much as Naruto likes him, it doesn’t really hold a candle to how much he loves Iruka. 

Iruka shrugs, but his smile has a wicked edge to it. “Either way, your problem gets solved.”

Kakashi laughs as he ties up his bundle of pencils and tosses it over to Iruka. “Fair enough. Would you prefer a more lavish ceremony?”

“Not lavish, no. But if we’re going to need witnesses anyway, we might as well wait so they can all come.”

“Then we’ll do it your way, sensei.”

“Oh, that’s another thing, Kakashi-san.” When Kakashi looks at him for elaboration, Iruka does an airy kind of motion with his hand between them. “You’ll have to stop calling me ‘sensei’ once we’re married. It just doesn’t feel right anymore.”

“Are you _sure_ , Iruka-sensei?” Kakashi asks, leering at him. “It’s your title, isn’t it? Why can’t I use it? Just because we’re lying in bed in our pajamas doesn’t mean you stop being a teacher, _sensei-_ ”

“Ugh, no, stop!” Iruka exclaims, rubbing at his scar with chagin. “It’s too much. Unless you want me to address you as Rokudaime-sama at home?” he challenges, and Kakashi has a hand up in a “desist” motion before he can help himself.

“Point taken. But in exchange you need to drop the honorific too.”

Iruka opens his mouth instinctively to protest, and then pauses. “That seems fair. And logical.”

“Good.” And because Kakashi likes sticking his foot directly into puddles of trouble, he says, “Why don’t you try it now?”

The way Iruka’s brow furrows in consternation never fails to amuse Kakashi. “Why? We aren’t wed yet.”

“Consider it practice, Iruka,” he says coolly, managing not to append his much beloved “-sensei” at the end.

Iruka narrows his eyes before saying, very crisply, “I don’t see why I need to practice, Kakashi.” Despite his precise pronunciation, Kakashi notices the slightest nanosecond of hesitation.

“You had to think about it.”

Iruka sputters indignantly at the accusation. “I’ll get used to it soon enough!”

“Be sure that you do.”

“It’s still much less mortifying than you accidentally calling me ‘sensei’ in the middle of a gala,” Iruka grumbles as he gathers his papers in a stack.

“It’s okay, you can just flutter your lashes and tell them I have a teacher kink-”

“Oh, _absolutely not_ -”

\--

Gai cries when Kakashi informs him of his upcoming nuptials. Great, manly rivulets of tears flow down his gleaming face, and Kakashi belatedly thinks that he should have anticipated this and brought tissues. He settles for patting Gai on the shoulder, and gets his hand crunched in a masculine and heartfelt display of tenderness.

“Kakashi, my beloved friend, my Eternal Rival,” Gai manages to say when his sniffles have subsided. Kakashi is wheeling him around a training field because if they were in town Gai would certainly announce Kakashi’s happy news to everyone within hearing range. “What a joyous occasion this will be! The whole village will resound with exuberant cries-”

“We’re only inviting ten people,” Kakashi interrupts, but Gai’s bubble doesn’t burst in the slightest.

“How modern and hip! Of course you, my most Savvy and Prudent comrade, wouldn’t get caught up in the trappings of the wedding industry! Especially with a lover as Astute and Independent as Iruka-sensei!”

Kakashi doesn’t correct him. To all outside observers, including those closest to them, this marriage will be real. Even if he and Iruka had been nothing more than colleagues and friends before, from here forward they would be husbands in every sense. 

“Yeah, we’re keeping it small. There isn’t going to be a reception or anything.”

He can feel Gai’s frown even while standing behind him. “Not even a celebratory meal afterwards?”

Actually, knowing his students, they’ll all wind up at a restaurant together somehow, so he tells Gai that yes, maybe a meal together, but no, he may not make the entire restaurant toast the occasion nor may he challenge Kakashi to a contest on his wedding day.

“Even I know that the first day of your conjugal bliss is not the time for our Healthy and Stimulating Rivalry!”

“Good. So, do you want to be part of the wedding- hey, stay still- no handstands- if you drown in your own tears I’m going to replace you with someone else.”

  


Tenzou does not cry when Kakashi tells him. Instead, he holds the newly assigned mission Kakashi just personally handed him and gives Kakashi a long look before asking, “Is there any way I can help with the wedding, senpai?”

“No, no, you just need to show up,” Kakashi says, waving him away, but Tenzou continues standing in front of his desk looking contemplative before he smiles knowingly.

“Should I go offer Iruka-sensei my congratulations on your long and happy relationship? I’m glad you made it here.”

Kakashi knows he’s being needled, but there isn’t anything he can really do about it without using chakra. Of course Tenzou would remember the one time a decade ago Kakashi let slip the fact that he thought the new chuunin at the mission desk had a nice face. “Er, sure. You do that.”

“I will, after my mission. Congrats, senpai. Good luck with the planning!” He flickers away and Kakashi sighs to himself about troublesome kouhai.

  


The day of reckoning comes when Naruto has a free day. They’ve each seen him individually since his return last week, but it’s only now that they both have the time to see him together. Iruka bribes him with his usual promise of lunch _and_ allows him to demonstrate some basic ninjutsu for the eldest Academy class, in hopes that he’ll be at his most pliant when they break the news to him. For good measure, Kakashi even buys the kid some red bean soup, which Naruto accepts after giving Kakashi a healthy amount of sideeye. 

“So what’s the deal?” Naruto asks after his fifth order of dessert. They’re seated outside, hidden away at a secluded table at the side of the shop. Naruto squishes one cheek against his palm and gestures between the two of them. He’s grown so much since Kakashi first officially met him, but he hasn’t lost all the softness in his face yet, for which Kakashi is kind of glad. He already looks so much like Minato-sensei and yells so much like Kushina. Or like Iruka. “You’re both usually too busy to see me at the same time anymore. Do you have a secret mission to give me or something? Ooh, are you going to let me have my own mini-class, like Shino?” he asks Iruka brightly, sitting up. “There’s this new kind of jiton I came up with that I wanna try and teach them-”

“Having you teach part-time is something I do want to discuss with you at some point, but no, there’s another thing we wanted to talk to you about,” Iruka hedges, glancing at Kakashi, who nods slightly to encourage him. They both agreed that it would be better for Naruto to hear it from Iruka. “Something important that we both wanted you to know.”

Naruto perks up even further at this. “Yeah? What is it?”

“Kakashi-sensei and I are getting married.”

The earth-shattering shock on Naruto’s face is a point of delight, even if it’s at Kakashi’s expense. “To _each other?_ ”

“Uh, yes,” Iruka laughs nervously, scratching at his scar.

“ _Why?_ ”

“Maybe we’re in love,” Kakashi tells him blandly. Most people haven’t pried into the reasons behind their marriage, choosing to accept it when Kakashi hints that this is the next logical step in his relationship with Iruka, even if he knows they know better. He is infamously tight-lipped about his personal life, so everyone has learned to leave well enough alone by now, which is what he and Iruka were banking on. Iruka, meanwhile, has extremely nosy friends, but he’s quite good at avoidance. Kakashi is also completely certain that Tsunade knows the truth, but she doesn’t do anything beyond knock back a line of shots and loudly commend him for finally getting his life in order. 

Naruto’s sheer indignation is both entertaining and maybe a little offensive.

“In love with _you_ , Kakashi-sensei? You’re amazing at a lot of stuff, but you’re also- bleargh,” he says eloquently, gesturing at Kakashi’s entire person with some emotion that’s mostly disbelief.

“Ouch,” Kakashi says. 

“Naruto! You’re being extremely rude,” Iruka scolds, reaching over to chop his child softly on the head. “That’s your former teacher and my future husband you’re insulting.”

“But Iruka-sensei,” Naruto whines, sounding like the teen he still is, “You could marry _anyone_ in the village, and you choose _this?_ ” When he points he almost puts out the eye Kakashi only just got back. Iruka has to cough suddenly to cover up a laugh.

“Naruto, while I’m touched by your, um, misplaced faith in my charms, the person I’ve chosen is Kakashi,” Iruka tells him patiently once his coughing fit stops. At Naruto’s continued huffing, he says, “I know it may seem confusing to you, but I was hoping you would give us your blessing. You know I value your opinion very highly.” 

From anyone else, Kakashi would find the words almost manipulative, but Iruka looks at Naruto with the kind of open, unsuppressable fondness that Kakashi used to find frightening when he was younger. Kakashi would die for Naruto, but Iruka would cling stubbornly to his last wretched, painful moments of life until he could be certain that Naruto was safe. It’s an impossible, terrifying kind of love.

“ _Yeah_ , but- ugh- you’re not playing fair right now!” Naruto says, crossing his arms and slouching down in his seat with a pout. He’s right. Even Kakashi might find himself vacillating if he were on the receiving end of that kind of affection bomb.

“Older siblings don’t have to play fair,” Iruka laughs, reaching over to ruffle Naruto’s slightly overgrown hair. Kakashi watches as he cards his fingers through blond locks, and the gesture is so tender that he feels he should look away.

Naruto’s face goes pink, and he scowls but doesn’t push Iruka’s hand off. It makes Kakashi want to pat him on the head too. “ _Fine_ , if you’re going to marry him, then I guess I’m okay with it. I mean, if you really like him that much I have to accept it. But he better make you really damn happy!”

“He will,” Iruka promises at the same time that Kakashi says, “I’ll do everything in my power to make that happen.”

Naruto glances between the two of them, trying to read their faces. His nose scrunches when he makes eye contact with Kakashi, who resists the urge to reach over and poke his puffed up cheeks, but eventually he just slumps onto the table in defeat. Iruka musses his hair even more wildly until Naruto starts complaining about how it’s getting scruffed into a weird shape.

“This marriage isn’t going to change anything between us,” Iruka assures him, smiling when Naruto wilts a little under his palm. “We’re still us, and my h- sorry, _our_ house- will still always be open to you. You can always come home.”

Kakashi hears the unspoken _I will not leave you_ and he thinks Naruto does too. The difference is that Naruto isn’t yet aware that one day he’ll be the one outgrowing them, that they’ll be the ones left behind as he becomes his own man. Blue eyes meet brown, and he sees a tacit understanding pass between the two of them. 

“Okay,” Naruto says hoarsely, leaning into Iruka’s hand, and Kakashi is reminded again that despite all the apparently boundless love in his heart, there’s only one person in the world that can make Iruka’s eyes go soft like that.

“Thank you. It does mean a lot to both of us. And I hope you’ll be one of my first visitors once I move.”

“Course I will. Hey, I bet you’ll have room for a kotatsu now!”

“Oh, I’m sure we will,” Iruka says, looking over at Kakashi, who quickly considers the copious amounts of space in his home and nods. “And a futon too, if you wanted to stay over.”

“Wait, does Kakashi-sensei have a couch? And a TV? We can watch the sequel to that Ocean Warrior movie! They put out four more of them!”

Iruka makes a pained noise. “They keep getting worse and worse...”

“That’s what makes them good!”

“The camera movements in the last one almost made you puke!”

Naruto scoffs. “It’s okay, I’ll just keep a trash can next to me.”

“I’ll buy one just for you and write your name on the side.”

“Write it on my futon too!” Kakashi, who’s been watching this volley of words with blatant interest, chuckles when he sees Iruka recoil at this suggestion.

“You can’t write on a futon! You’ll ruin the fabric!”

“Can’t you use string- y’know, like embroidery? You said that you used to sew people’s shoes and pants together with chakra- isn’t it basically the same thing?”

“Oh?” Kakashi asks, turning to look at his fiancé with undisguised delight.

“It’s completely different!” Iruka cries out, looking mortified that Naruto is revealing all his sordid secrets.

“If you say so,” Naruto says skeptically. “Hey, Iruka-sensei, don’t forget to take your special bowls with you to Kakashi-sensei’s place. And your frog pillow.”

“I’ll make sure to pack them safely.”

“Are you moving in with us?” Kakashi asks Naruto, amused by the plans they’re cobbling together without his input. “You can have one of the guest rooms — there’s more space in that house than I have any idea what to do with — but if you’re trying to get alone time with Hinata-”

“No, ugh!” Naruto leaps away from the table like he’s been scalded, his face burning redder than Sakura’s dress. “Don’t you dare mention Hinata! With me! In your house with you and Iruka-sensei around the corner?! Ew!”

Ah, youth. “It'll probably be your house one day,” Kakashi reminds him brightly as Iruka bites down hard on his own knuckle to stop from laughing. “We’ll set up the guest room anyway. For your solo use. But we’ll still be around the corner, so-”

“Stop stop stop! I don’t want to hear it! Thanks for lunch, but I’m leaving now!” 

He shudders violently, as if trying to shake any unwelcoming thoughts about them out of his body, and begins retreating.

“Bye, Naruto,” Iruka calls. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Naruto agrees hastily, before spinning on his toes and flipping around. “Oh, wait! I know you don’t need the warning, but- you should make Kakashi-sensei happy too, Iruka-sensei. Somebody should be looking out for him.” Naruto scratches at the nape of his neck, looking awkward but genuine in his demand. 

Iruka looks much less startled than Kakashi feels and he lifts a hand in the air as if being sworn into office. “I will.”

“Alright, then I’ll see you guys later.” He comes to a sudden realization and pulls a face. “And don’t make out where I can see you! Or hear you!”

“When have we ever done such a thing?” Kakashi asks him, but he just crosses his arms in a X over his chest like a preemptive warning.

“I just don’t want you getting any ideas!”

“Get going, you,” Iruka says. “I’m sure your friends are waiting for you! Also, do _not_ teach my pre-genin how to magnetize things until they know how to block!”

“Ha, sure!”

“Naruto, I’m serious! Hey!” Iruka shakes his fist aimlessly in the air as their student runs off.

“That wasn’t so bad,” Kakashi says as they watch him disappear around the corner. Some of the energy deflates out of Iruka, and he almost ends up slumping into Kakashi, who puts a hand up to catch him by the shoulder. “You okay there, Iruka-sensei?”

Iruka continues looking out into the streets for a moment before he turns to meet Kakashi’s eyes. “Yeah, I just- I was more worried than I thought I was,” he sighs. His gaze flickers down and away. “There was no way he would really disapprove, but still, I- I wanted him to understand. But how can he understand if I can’t really explain?”

“I’m sorry for putting you in a position to lie to him,” Kakashi tells him quietly, and he does mean it. They both work in an occupation built on lies and violence, but he knows it can still hurt to use those skills so close to the heart.

“It’s okay, I knew what I was agreeing to. Even if the rest of the story isn’t real, it’s true that we’re partners now. I’m here to be your support, and whatever else you need.” He tilts his head back up and Kakashi realizes that his hand is still braced against Iruka’s arm, and that they’re sitting with uncharacteristic closeness. From this distance, his eyes are forest dark but still as warm as ever. It’s a sight Kakashi is going to have to grow used to. 

“I will give you everything I can,” Kakashi says, because he can promise at least that to the person to whom he is about to pledge his life.

“I don’t need much,” Iruka says as a reassurance, but Kakashi is still left wondering if what he can give is enough.

\--

The wedding is a quiet affair.

Well, as quiet as any event can be with Naruto, Sakura, and Gai in attendance.

They each invite a handful of people, and hold it on the roof of the Hokage building because it’s easy enough to shoo people away from there for long enough to get the ceremony done. Kakashi sent a hawk to give Sasuke an invitation as well, but of course only received a blunt refusal as well as a somewhat congratulatory message of condolence to be relayed to Iruka for his poor taste in partners.

Gai is the officiant, because he went and got himself licensed at some point in a shockingly unsurprising turn of events. This leaves Sakura as Kakashi’s best woman: a position he wasn’t sure if she would accept at first. She did most enthusiastically, after first trying to punch him in the arm, which he dodged, and then crushing him in a hug, which he allowed, and only regretted the tiniest bit afterwards when he couldn’t sign any more paperwork with his jelly arms.

Naruto is Iruka’s best man, and he cleaned up admirably well for the job. Kakashi suspects that Sakura and Hinata had some hand in that, but he doesn’t bring it up, even as Iruka is gently brushing non-existent lint off his shoulders and remarking on how nice he looks. Naruto, in turn, tells him it feels weird to see everyone in such stuffy clothes, but that they look nice too.

They’d almost decided to just get married in their uniforms, but everyone else involved in the wedding loudly and vehemently opposed, so Kakashi sucked up whatever reservations he had and ventured back into the Hatake estate to sift through the carefully preserved memories he’d made sure not to touch in decades. After unearthing his father’s wedding haori and hakama, he sat back and lost several hours of time deciding whether or not he should wear it. It wasn’t until the next day, when Iruka admitted he had done the same thing — looked through the boxes of the keepsakes he could neither bring himself to pawn away nor display in his apartment, until he found his father’s formal attire — that they both quietly came to the agreement that this might be the one time they could wear these memories without drowning in the past.

Everyone mills about for a few minutes until Tsunade clears her throat loudly and Shizune jumps straight to getting everyone in place. Kakashi takes his seat beside Iruka as they wait for everyone to settle.

He should be watching Gai prepare their sake cups, but he can’t help a sideways glance at Iruka, dressed in midnight blue and white, his dark hair tied neatly without his hitai-ate to hold back the few flyaway wisps that frame his forehead. Iruka catches him looking at the same moment that Kakashi intends to look away, and in penance he lets a few words slip.

“You look-”

“Like a fish out of water?” Iruka asks, grinning sheepishly at him. “Or a fish in silks.” He rubs at the scar on his thumb but keeps his hands folded on his knees: the only sign of nerves besides his perfect posture.

“No, you look quite lovely,” Kakashi murmurs before turning back to his best rival, who looks to be holding his overflowing emotions in with his indomitable willpower.

Iruka doesn’t get the chance to respond before Gai is handing them their first set of sake cups, and then they’re caught in the steps of their ceremony and their simple vows. They speak their promise to one another into the universe, they bow to the gods above, and then it’s time for the exchange of binding gifts.

Naruto strides forward with pride and hands a lacquer box to his father, who bows as he presents it to Kakashi. With careful fingers, Kakashi removes from the box a beautiful iron tessen painted with the Umino crest. He snaps it open, taking stock of the way the air cuts in a burst, and knows that despite its age, it was masterfully crafted and well cared for. He folds it flat and tucks it into his obi before meeting Iruka’s smile with his own.

Next, Sakura walks carefully up to them and presents the sheathed weapon in her hands to Kakashi, who grips it firmly for a final time before he offers it to his soon-to-be-husband with both hands. Iruka’s calm face is marred by slight confusion as he registers a familiarity in the sword that he cannot place, but he unsheathes it regardless, and then looks rapidly back at Kakashi in astonishment.

From the gasp from both Gai and their small crowd, Iruka isn’t the only one surprised by the tanto he’s holding. As if he isn’t quite able to believe it, Iruka draws the blade through the air in a delicate arc. Kakashi can feel everyone tracing the resulting streak of white chakra with their eyes.

“This is-”

“It is now yours, as am I.” 

Iruka swallows back the emotion Kakashi can see building in him, before sheathing the tanto and tying it to his hip. And with that, their ceremony is completed. Kakashi and Iruka are married.

  


As expected, they end up at a restaurant. It took longer than they thought it would to leave the Hokage building, with the surprising number of tears and the amount of hugging Kakashi and Iruka were each subjected to. Kakashi doesn’t get a moment alone with Iruka until they’re seated at a long table surrounded by much more food than he anticipated ordering today. They still aren’t alone in any sense, but their friends are so occupied with eating and celebrating that Kakashi is finally freed from conversation.

“Have some soup,” Iruka says as he passes a bowl to Kakashi. Their fingers brush as Kakashi takes it, and they exchange awkward nods. It feels like both nothing and everything has changed.

“Thank you, Iruka-se-” He cuts himself off before he can complete the honorific.

“You were going to say it!” Iruka accuses, a smile already unfolding on his lips.

“I wasn’t,” Kakashi denies, his fingers still wrapped around his soup bowl to anchor him.

“Don’t lie to your husband.” Kakashi doesn’t know how Iruka does that — keep his voice bone-dry even when his face spells out exactly how much he’s enjoying your torment.

“What if it’s a matter of village security?”

“I can tell the difference between lies and state secrets.”

“Oh, remind me to up your clearance level.” He adds it mentally to his list of to-dos. While they’ve moved most of Iruka’s possessions to the house and have updated the wards, there’s still a good many little details to sort out. Such as broaching the subject of having Iruka sign the summons contract.

“Okay, if you remind me to add you to next month’s guest speaker list. Sadoru-sensei’s class is taking their genin test soon, and I think it’d be motivating to get the chance to ask you some questions.”

“I’ll do it if you ask Sadoru-sensei to have her students transform into me for their exam,” Kakashi says before speed-drinking his soup.

“Should that be with or without the hat?” Iruka teases.

“No hat, but bare-faced.”

“You’re practically begging them to caricature you.”

“Are you two seriously talking about work right now?” Kotetsu demands, waving a bottle of sake at them from Iruka’s left. He periodically lists into Izumo’s side, before getting pushed back into an upright position. Kakashi wonders if he hasn’t been getting enough sleep with all the errands Shizune and he have been dispatching the two to do.

“Just a little bit,” Iruka tries to say, before Izumo scoffs and shoves an entire platter of jellyfish at him.

“It’s your wedding day!” Sakura says from across the table. She looks horrified by how humdrum her teachers are. “Don’t discuss work matters! You should be celebrating!”

“Maa, this _is_ how we celebrate, Sakura. The throes of young love are very different from the joy a married couple derives from one another’s company.”

“You’ve been married for two hours!”

“Don’t try to understand them, Sakura-chan. They’re boring now,” Naruto warns. He’s sitting beside Sakura so that he can glare directly into Kakashi’s eyes while shoveling rice into his mouth. Kakashi finds his ability to multitask admirable.

She whirls on him next. “If you and Hinata ever decide to get married, I’m expecting a better showing than this.”

“Sakura-chan!” Naruto manages to squeal out before beginning to choke on a piece of pork. Sakura immediately grabs him around the waist and squeezes the blockage right back out. Gai and Shizune cheer from their end of the table. Meanwhile, it takes both Tenzou and Kurenai to hold Anko back from ordering a dozen plates of crab.

“Honestly, Naruto,” Sakura sighs while setting him back down in his seat. “I guess I should settle in for a long engagement.”

“We’ve only been dating for a year! And what about you! You’ve been hanging around Ino a lot lately,” Naruto says triumphantly, taking his chances with an elbow nudging her arm.

Kakashi is pleasantly surprised to see Sakura react like Naruto is indeed onto something with this accusation. Perhaps she’s finally moving past her childhood crush on Sasuke. “We- we’re just reconnecting as friends for now!” she sputters, but her pink face and fidgety hands say otherwise.

“Stop teasing each other, you two, and eat your dinner,” Iruka reprimands them.

“Yes, Iruka-sensei,” they chorus in shame.

“And get more vegetables,” Kakashi adds. “Rice and protein is not a balanced meal.”

Naruto grumbles but complies, especially since he can’t really stop Sakura and Kakashi from piling more greens and carrots into his bowl. 

When he looks back, he finds that Iruka has given him grilled fish while he was occupied with Naruto.

“You eat your dinner too,” Iruka says in a way that sounds like he’s asking, _so I’ll have to look after you too?_

“Whatever you say, sensei,” Kakashi says primly, enjoying the way Iruka sighs at him.

\--

The evening has long bled into night by the time Kakashi takes his first walk home with his husband. The air is cooler than typical for this time of year, and the budding branches of the trees glow electric green beneath the buzzing streetlights. They’re walking together slightly closer than usual, and Kakashi wonders if he should offer to take Iruka’s hand. Walking hand in hand seems like a thing regular couples do, though, then again, he’d never witnessed Asuma and Kurenai doing it. In the end, he decides that he grabs Iruka’s hand enough as it is; it would probably be better to give him some space.

“It feels like I’m going back to work,” Iruka says as they approach the Hokage building cluster.

Kakashi hums in agreement. “In my first month of being Hokage I literally rolled out of bed one minute before my conference with the Intelligence division. There’s a reason we hold those meetings in their building now.”

“Please don’t tell me you ran over without getting dressed.”

“Alright, I won’t,” Kakashi says, watching with amusement as Iruka’s eyes grow wide, before his expression turns shrewd.

“No, this is a trick. Did you- did you forget to put your mask on?”

“Oh, no, I sleep with the mask on.”

“You do not.”

“Of course I do. I haven’t taken this mask off since I was five years old.”

Iruka rolls his eyes and whaps Kakashi with the billowing sleeve of his haori. “You take it off every time we eat lunch together.”

“How would you know? Have you been sneaking peeks at me, Iruka? Trying to catch a glimpse of one of the seven mysteries of Konoha?”

“...what are the other six mysteries?”

“Ah, what they are is a mystery unto itself-”

“You’re impossible! Forget I asked,” Iruka exclaims, laughing against his will. Kakashi is about to launch into a long-winded story about mystery #1 when he realizes they’ve crossed the gates and have arrived back home.

Kakashi lets them in and they remove their zouri at the doorway. There’s a moment of awkwardness as they both find their way into the bedroom and attempt to divest themselves of their wedding clothes, until Kakashi offers to help Iruka first.

Iruka accepts and meticulously frees Kakashi’s father’s tanto from his hip and places it in the rack on the wall.

“Thank you,” he says after making certain it’s secured. “It’s a very special gift.”

“You and I are family now,” Kakashi explains as Iruka approaches him with soundless steps. “It only made sense. Thank you for entrusting me with your grandmother’s tessen.”

“She would be happy to know you have it. Though she’d probably have a lot to say about its proper usage.”

Kakashi laughs, but the sound fades as Iruka spreads his arms out and Kakashi has to slide the haori from his shoulders. He’s been neither parent nor lover to anyone before, so the only people he’s helped dress or undress were injured comrades.

He can feel a soap-bubble-thin membrane of tension in the air as he helps Iruka slip out of his hakama, but counter-intuitively, it seems to evaporate with each layer of clothing. Eventually, Iruka is left in nothing but his under-kimono, and his clothes set aside on the couch. It’s intimate in a way that Kakashi doesn’t know how to be, so he reacts on instinct and imitates Iruka’s actions and allows himself to be helped out of his clothing until he too has been stripped down to just his under-kimono.

There’s a beat where they look only at one another, the gravity of their new lives settling like a stone falling into a well. The silence echoes with the words neither of them have ready.

“Um, thank you, Kakashi-sa- Kakashi. I’m going to- over there,” Iruka eventually says, pointing blindly in the direction of the bathroom.

“Yes, go ahead,” Kakashi replies, only barely less stilted, and Iruka hurries away.

With Iruka in the bathroom first, Kakashi has the chance to hang up their clothes to be cleaned later and to change into his sleep pants. He then stares at the contents of their shared closet and wonders if it would be polite to put on a shirt. In the end, he settles for shrugging on a beautifully hideous orange and powder blue t-shirt that Tenzou bought him as a souvenir on his first leisure trip out of the Land of Fire after leaving ANBU. Next, he follows his typical routine of removing his mask and attempting in vain to tame his wild Hatake hair, before giving up and sitting seiza-style upon his too-large bed, waiting for his husband to emerge. Soon enough, the door slides open, and Iruka steps out, now changed into his plain pajamas.

“It’s safe to look,” Kakashi says gently, and despite himself, he holds his breath as he waits for his husband to look up.

He can see the way surprise flickers on in Iruka’s eyes like a candle in a dark corridor, but years of training prevent Iruka from displaying any reaction more than holding Kakashi’s gaze and asking softly, “Are you sure?”

For someone willing to shout at Kakashi very loudly and very publicly when justified, Iruka has always carried a level of consideration for his oddities that continues to surprise Kakashi to this day. His mask, his meandering hours at the memorial stone, his propensity for napping in trees when he’s exhausted from all-day conferences; Iruka takes it all in stride. He’ll give as good as he gets when Kakashi teases, but he never treats Kakashi’s probably irritating habits as anything more than quirks to be accepted.

Now they're at a standstill: Kakashi seated on their bed with his mask bunched in his hand and Iruka in the doorway, unwilling to advance any closer, yet unable to break eye contact with Kakashi. 

Kakashi briefly entertains the thought of sitting here until Iruka’s curiosity gets the better of him, but he can’t be certain he’ll win the standoff. So he smiles and says, “If not for my husband, then for whom?”

It breaks the semi-trance that fell over the two of them, and Iruka shrugs in agreement as he enters the bedroom. “I’ll accept the honor, then.” He finishes moving a few of the boxes aside that still need unpacking, and comes and seats himself at the foot of the bed and then they’re watching one another again. Iruka finally allows himself to take in Kakashi’s face: the slightly paler skin from the bridge of his nose and below, the end of the scar that bisects his eye, the tiny beauty mark near his lips. Kakashi honestly thinks the reveal is much more disappointing than whatever the mystery builds up to in other people’s minds, but he sits still so Iruka can finish studying him.

“One mystery down,” Iruka says softly, raising his gaze until their eyes meet and he nods. “Just six more to go.”

Kakashi appreciates the normality with which he approaches this strange privilege. As if it isn’t at all bizarre that he married a man before ever seeing his entire face.

“Luckily, none of those have to do with me,” Kakashi says with false relief, and Iruka awards him a smile that turns quickly into a baffled frown.

“What on earth is your shirt?” He reaches out to pluck at the unknown emblem in the middle that looks like a nine-legged salamander.

“A souvenir from Tenzou,” Kakashi says, because it’s all he knows about it.

“I see…” Iruka mutters. Kakashi can practically see his opinion of Tenzou’s fashion sense transforming in real time.

Kakashi leaves him to tidy anything else up that he wishes, and goes to make sure his toothbrush is still in its right place.

“So it _was_ a lie after all,” Iruka remarks as Kakashi putters around the bathroom sans mask. 

Kakashi pokes his head back out to see him looking at the mask and says through his mouth full of toothpaste and around his brush, “Well, it certainly wasn’t a state secret.”

“Ha, ha.”

Iruka seems unable to stop himself from unpacking the things he’ll need for work, even though tomorrow is still the weekend. Kakashi just leaves him be and settles into bed, assuming that unless Iruka burns off the fumes of this excess energy, he’ll be too restless to fall asleep anyway. He has to remember to move to one side instead of just lying down in the middle.

“You’re not going to tell me my face is a deal-breaker, are you? After we’ve signed all the papers and updated the registry and everything?” he comments as Iruka puts aside a planner he pulled from somewhere and stretches his back out.

“No, you have a nice face, and I’m pretty sure you’re aware of it. And if you weren’t, I’m telling you now. Congratulations on your face.”

“Thank you very much. But you still look troubled.”

“It’s just...Naruto owes me 500 ryo,” Iruka says, his expression growing sly. “I told him there was no way you had a mustache.”

Kakashi can’t help laughing at the memory of Naruto insisting that Kakashi must be hiding some big secret beneath his mask. “Please tell him I have a mustache. I’ll pay you quadruple what he owes you.”

“There’s no point; we share finances now. Which, by the way, I should warn you: you _will_ see a decrease in your bank balance.”

“My paycheck is going straight toward Naruto’s stomach, isn’t it?”

“No, that’s mine. Yours is paying for that embroidered futon he wants.”

“Right. Let’s go shopping tomorrow.”

Iruka finally climbs into the bed, but then picks up the brush on his nightstand and does something Kakashi never realized he would have the chance to witness. With one deft hand, he reaches up and tugs his hair tie out and shakes his ponytail free.

His hair cascades down loosely around his face, sleek and slightly wavy from being bound up all day. Kakashi can see for the first time that it’s a little longer than shoulder length, and, now that it frames Iruka’s face, that it’s a shade or so darker than Iruka’s skin. He wonders if it’s as soft as it looks, but he knows intellectually that it would be weird to ask.

However, even his staring is enough, because Iruka gives him a self-conscious smile, asking, “What is it?” 

“I’ve never seen you without your hair up.”

“Oh, that’s because I find it impractical to keep it down. Too easy for the kids to grab, or stick bugs or gum in.” He draws the brush efficiently through his hair and goes to switch off the light before scooting under the covers.

It’s only now that Kakashi understands that no matter how large he thought the bed to be, they still feel quite close to one another. Only an arm’s length away. The proximity is utterly alien. Almost unnerving, and he has to consciously slow his pulse even though he knows that Iruka is an ally, that any danger that lies coiled in Iruka’s bones and muscles will never be directed at him. But his body doesn’t recognize what his mind does: that his nervousness isn’t from paranoia, but something entirely new.

There’s no light in the room but for the watery moonlight that falls through the window behind their bed but it’s enough for him to make out the sight of Iruka’s eyes peering at him in the dark.

“We really went through with it,” Iruka whispers. A lock of hair is falling into his face, and Kakashi is startled to find he has to hold himself back from brushing it out of the way.

He says into the space between them, “We did. Let’s have a happy marriage.”

“Mm, alright,” Iruka replies, his eyes already starting to drift closed. “Goodnight, Kakashi.”

This time, when he says Kakashi’s name, there’s no hesitation at all.

\--

Kakashi wakes shortly before sunrise as usual, but he can’t help but tense when he feels the weight of another body and someone else’s chakra in the room with him. Then he remembers yesterday and forces himself to relax before turning to look.

Iruka is splayed out on the mattress, one hand flung over into Kakashi’s space and his head tilted back on his pillow. His hair spills like an ink painting around him, and he looks like he may be having an annoying dream, from the way his eyebrows twitch a bit even in sleep.

He looks soft like this, with the line of his throat exposed and his smart mouth lax with sleep. Kakashi’s never thought of any part of Iruka as soft before, besides perhaps his heart, but even that isn’t soft so much as open and overgrown. He’s seen enough of Iruka’s scars and scanned enough of his old reports to know he has the same diligence and steel in his spine that all respectable shinobi of Konoha possess. Furthermore, he has the firm hand and unwavering perseverance of an experienced teacher, which is something that only a select few in their village can boast.

But here, asleep in their bed with nothing to trouble him besides whatever irritations live in his dream, Kakashi has the chance to see a new secret side of him. It’s a frightening gift to receive.

“Iruka,” he whispers, and Iruka’s nose crinkles as if he subconsciously hears Kakashi but doesn’t want to respond. Kakashi decides to leave him alone, since neither of them have appointments today besides with one another.

He goes through his usual morning routine, and by the time he’s putting his fried egg on his bowl of rice, Iruka shuffles into the living room, looking comfortably disheveled. It’s the kind of vulnerability that few kinds of relationships allow, and to know that it’s Kakashi’s to keep is another new responsibility he’ll have to get used to. Iruka’s hair is still down, which Kakashi is inexplicably glad about.

“Good morning. Do you like your yolk cooked solid, or runny?”

“Do you always wake before the sun?” Iruka asks through a yawn instead of answering. He pads over to stare blearily at Kakashi’s breakfast and then the white egg waiting in his hand. From this close Kakashi can see his three stray hairs that have gone prematurely gray in a sea of dark.

“Pretty much. But I imagine you don’t wake up much later; you’re at the Academy by 6:30 most days.” 

“Well, weekends are for sleeping in. And I’d like the yolk kind of jammy.”

“Will do.”

“Thank you, Kakashi,” Iruka says before shuffling back away, still looking somewhat dazed. Kakashi watches him leave like the intriguing non-mystery that he is, even as the oil in the pan starts to spit at his bare arms.

In the few minutes that it takes Kakashi to finish frying his egg, Iruka gets himself completely ready for the day, and is seated at the table in his uniform blues with his hair tied back by the time Kakashi sets their meals down.

“Oh, miso soup!” he says with the pure-hearted happiness of a person who doesn’t eat homemade meals. “And you cut the tofu so evenly,” Iruka remarks next.

“I’ll show you how next time,” Kakashi says, tugging his mask down to sip his soup.

“Please do,” Iruka says while turning to face the refrigerator.

“You’ve seen my face now, Iruka,” Kakashi reminds him, while trying not to smile at the way Iruka whips his head back toward him.

“Sorry, habit! It’s going to take a while for me to remember,” he says, glancing almost shyly between his bowl and Kakashi. The illusion of coyness is broken when he uses his spoon to vigorously smash his egg into his rice.

They enjoy breakfast while indulging in gossip about their friends’ lives, like Shizune’s date Kakashi wasn’t supposed to know about, and how tall Mirai has gotten. Iruka insists on washing the dishes after breakfast, so Kakashi helps dry them before showing him the contents of every cabinet in their kitchen.

“That’s very many knives,” Iruka says as he pokes about the kitchen memorizing its contents and looking for incriminating secrets.

“No more than the standard number of shuriken you probably carry on you at all times.” 

“No more useful, either,” Iruka mumbles absently as he looks at the condiments in the fridge. He pulls out Kakashi’s jars of umeboshi, rakkyo, and tsukemono, frowns at them in consideration, and then replaces each one in its proper location.

“...sensei, please don’t tell me you use your shuriken to cut meat. Please.”

“Then I won’t,” he says with a grin, turning Kakashi’s words back against him.

“Iruka,” Kakashi protests, despairing. But his husband is already fleeing the room, on to catalogue their living room instead.

  


It’s closing in on 9 a.m. when they finally leave the house to go do their shopping, and, as Kakashi expected, half the village already knows that they got married yesterday. The official announcement is set for Monday morning, but they were certainly noticed at last night’s dinner, and news in a shinobi village travels faster than a katon through underbrush.

The staring is no surprise. He is their leader, after all, and now he’s strolling around town with his apparent spouse, who is already insanely popular in a way that few people are. Kakashi wasn’t wrong about Iruka being mobbed by children at every turn, but Iruka wasn’t wrong either, about parents and grandparents and, frankly, what seems to be totally random people coming over to chat him up. Iruka receives each of them either kindly, politely, or both, and while he’s usually quite good at extricating himself from a conversation after a few minutes, Kakashi has to rescue him a few times from some particularly talkative ones.

But it’s the sheer number of congratulatory messages they receive that confuse Kakashi. Iruka was wrong; absolutely no one has any hesitation about approaching Kakashi today. Everyone from civilians to toddlers to shopkeepers has a happy word for them, and the two of them have to turn down about three dozen offers for discounts and coupons from various vendors throughout the trip. It’s harder to refuse free offerings of dried plums and knife polish when they’re pressed into Kakashi’s hands as wedding gifts. By the time they get to the futon store Kakashi is holding six whole bags of stuff. He doesn’t even know what he’s carrying anymore.

Iruka, true to his character, mulls over bedding choices until he’s certain he’s secured all the best for Naruto, and then seals it all up in a scroll that he brought along, just like he did with his own half dozen bags. He offers to do the same for Kakashi, but Kakashi declines in the hope that his heavy load will dissuade other shops from piling on further gifts. 

His plan is successful, besides the fact that they target Iruka instead, and then both of them are over-encumbered by baggage again before they even make it to the fish market.

“We have enough fish oil to last us the rest of our lives,” Iruka says when they’re finally on their way back home. He’s resorted to balancing a basket of new towels on his head even though Kakashi suggested making a clone. They would be even more attention-grabbing than they currently are if there were a whole crowd of Hokages and vice-principals hobbling down the street, Iruka claimed.

“Spare buttons and absorption packs too.”

Iruka changes his stance on clones when it comes time to put everything away, which whiles away the rest of their morning. Cleaning up the spare room and the storage room upstairs and getting the rest of Iruka’s belongings into closets and shelves gets them through the afternoon, with only a short break to make and eat onigiri. Iruka lets Kakashi take the first bath, since he still has some books to organize, and by the time they’re both clean neither of them has the desire to do anything besides lie flat on the tatami and fantasize about dinner.

Housekeeping is honestly more taxing than trying to fight off five missing-nin alone.

“Will you show me how to make a coconut curry? Naruto’s been talking about it since coming back from Takigakure,” Iruka asks. He’s lying pointed in the opposite direction of Kakashi, with their heads resting near one another and his hair fanned out around him on a towel.

“Certainly, if I ever stand up again.”

“Oh, good, I wasn’t thinking about leaving this spot until next month anyway.”

“Agreed. You know, maybe Naruto was right. Is it possible that...we’re boring?” Kakashi muses, staring up at the ceiling. 

“Thirteen-year-old me would hate to know that I’m thinking about making multiplication worksheets right now,” Iruka mutters. “What’s on your mind?”

“Padding the animal shelter’s rainy day fund,” Kakashi admits. “And getting new rails for all the ramps at the Konoha library.”

“So, yes, we’re officially boring.”

They lie there together for probably another ten minutes before someone’s (Iruka’s) stomach growls loudly enough for the sound to echo through the room. Kakashi groans before rolling to his feet and offering a hand to Iruka. “Up you go. I’ll show you how to make unagi chazuke.”

“Oh, wonderful. Let me go grab my kunai.”

“Iruka, I swear to god-”

  


Cooking takes longer than usual. While Iruka’s kitchen skills are questionable at best, he’s also a strong learner and good listener, so they enjoy only slightly mangled eel for dinner before retiring to the living room again. Iruka sits at the low table and fills out progress reports while Kakashi situates himself on the couch with his knees tucked up to finish reading the historical romance novel Raidou gave him last month.

Kakashi thought it would take him much longer to get used to sharing his space with another person. That just the knowledge of another body, another chakra signature, in his home would keep him on edge for a few weeks at least. And it isn’t as if he becomes unaware of Iruka’s presence as they sit here quietly together, each doing their own activity, but neither does he find him intrusive or out of place. It’s like sitting on a tree branch and finding that a bird has decided to perch right next to him. Peculiar, but easily tolerated.

Peeking over the edge of his book, he observes Iruka tapping his pen against his cheek before jotting down a note on his current paper and setting it on another pile. He only has two more to go, and he seems so deeply preoccupied that he either doesn’t notice Kakashi watching him or is choosing to ignore it. His hair is done up again, and he’s somehow managed to get ink on his left hand, probably from smudging his palm against someone’s form by accident. He has the habit of twirling his pen from finger to finger while he thinks, and teasing at the edge of a paper with a restless hand. 

Kakashi never noticed Iruka fidgeting so much back when he still worked at the mission desk, but he could chalk that up to never having bothered looking. Before Team 7, he had been aware of Iruka only peripherally as the chuunin who occasionally took mission desk shifts but spent the majority of his time elsewhere, and as one of the Sandaime’s favorites, for whatever reason. They wound up on three fairly uneventful missions together during those years, and he filed away Iruka as competent and well-rounded, though perhaps too quick to jump in the line of fire for a teammate, and devoid of the ambition to pursue jounin status despite being capable.

A few years later, he would come to understand that it was because Iruka already had a more important calling; one that explained his somewhat self-sacrificial tendencies. Kakashi already learned the hard way that the lives of his comrades should always take precedence, but the rest of Konoha still tended to operate by its usual rules. Unless you work in the Academy. For Academy teachers, the lives of the children always come first. The children _are_ the mission.

And knowing, as he does now from Naruto’s retelling of the event, that Iruka went and took a giant shuriken more or less in the spine for his son and then went out for dinner afterwards like an utter maniac, Kakashi sees that initial assessment of him clearer in retrospect. 

Once he had Team 7 to reckon with, Kakashi came to know Iruka a bit better, especially after occasionally commiserating with him during Naruto’s long absence and studying Iruka more closely at the mission desk while he denounced the chicken scratch of adults who had worse handwriting than his pre-genin. But it wasn’t really until the end of the world that they came to be friends, and in the aftermath he confirmed for himself the heart of what he missed during his first go-around, which is that his husband can be kind of a handful if he intends to be.

Not most of the time, and certainly not now, sitting there peacefully writing comments about his students and their weapons proficiency and teamwork skills. But there’s a firecracker fuse underneath all his layers of stern kindness and paternal worrying and unshakable work ethic. Kakashi would probably do well to remember that.

“We’ve successfully made it through day one,” he says when he notices Iruka piling all his papers together.

“Are you keeping count?” Iruka laughs. He spins his pen between two fingers in a different trick than the one he was doing earlier, before pointing it at the blank space across from the doorway. “Shall I put a board up on the wall: 0 days since last potential cause for divorce?”

Kakashi hides his smile behind his knees. “Better not; the second Naruto or Sakura sees it, I’ll have to flee to Kirigakure to save myself.”

“It’s a bit too misty out there,” Iruka says, shaking his head. “I’d prefer somewhere less damp if we’re going to move.”

“Kumogakure? It’s quite beautiful, up in the clouds.”

“You’ve only exchanged mist for fog!”

It occurs to Kakashi that he spoke too soon when they’re in the bedroom again, turning in early since tomorrow is likely to be an extra busy day. Once again he finds himself lying in the dark beside Iruka, in a situation that feels like the indescribable middle ground between sleeping next to a comrade on the forest floor and sharing a bed with someone beloved. Kakashi has only really had experience with the former, but he wonders if he can’t extrapolate the latter from the bubble of closeness that seems to fold around them.

Body heat is never something he’s had to consider before, and now it seeps like syrup into the space between, just enough to catch hold in his consciousness. Just enough to make him turn his head so that he can make out the silvery silhouette of Iruka’s form and ponder whether he feels like Kakashi does: dislodged in this new world and jumping from one unsteady foothold to another, with this marriage as another new confusing continent he needs to map.

From the outside, Iruka looks like he’s been adjusting well to the future they now live in, and the marriage doesn’t seem to have shaken him much either. Kakashi is pretty confident about his ability to read Iruka’s eyes by now; he hasn’t noticed any sign of discomfort today, but he’ll have to check more closely in the future.

It feels like he should say something, but he’s never been good at words when there’s only emotions on the line. Some days, Kakashi still thinks that without a goal tying him down to earth, without a mission to complete, without a sin to atone for, he would simply vanish in a swirl of dying leaves and dust. On the bad days, he might even be looking forward to it. 

With a slow, silent breath, he lets his eyes close. Morning is both far and soon; he should settle into sleep to get a head start on escaping his dreams.

“One day down, like you said,” Iruka speaks suddenly into the gap between them, and Kakashi opens his eyes again and gives into the urge to look at him, like the point of a compass sliding back toward magnetic north.

“Was it as dreadful as you thought it would be?”

“Well, I enjoyed a delicious dinner, I have a lifetime supply of cotton pads for whatever reason, and now I’m tucked into a warm bed next to you.” 

Kakashi doesn’t know what to make of that last comment, so he just nods sagely and says, “So only half as dreadful as expected.”

“Sure,” Iruka says, and Kakashi can hear the smile in his voice even if he can’t see through the haze of the night. “Goodnight, Kakashi. Sweet dreams.”

“You too.”

Again, Kakashi lets his eyelids fall closed as he pushes himself into sleep, this time with the backdrop of Iruka’s even breaths to help him along.


	2. Chapter 2

The next day back is a nice exercise in all-day embarrassment.

After his twenty-three second announcement on the roof of the Hokage building to whoever is assembled below about his marriage, Kakashi flees to his office to hopefully work without interruption. Unfortunately, everyone he’s ever worked with seems to have decided that they’ll have their vengeance on him by paying him a friendly visit in his office to offer their well wishes.

Shizune, usually a fine gatekeeper for trouble, allows the unwashed masses in because “we might as well get it over with now, Kakashi-sama.”

So Kakashi nods and smiles at the genin teams who come by to offer felicitations on his marriage to their darling sensei, and thanks the well-behaved chuunin who poke their heads in the office, and tolerates all the smirking jounin who have a lot to say about his lost bachelor status. Even the ANBU guards outside the window seem to have more smug chakra than usual. All these bastards are really capitalizing on each time Kakashi previously told them he hated formality. 

The amount of work he actually gets done is negligible. With rising regret, he watches the piles on his desk grow, and begins reconsidering his plan to work in the office tomorrow. No one would think to look in the records building, or the scroll archives for him. It’s a sound plan, minus the minor heart attack he would give the guards on rotation there. He wonders if it’s abnormal to feel nostalgic over the good old days, when all he had to think about was fighting several people at once and getting his allies home safely. The fact that he’s sentimental over the last time he took a blade to the arm is probably a sign that he’s due to check in with Dr. Fujimoto again. Increasing the budget and scope of the village’s counseling services was probably one of the smarter things he’s done, and yet he can’t help but feel slightly annoyed at himself for needing the therapy. Iruka would probably call him an idiot for thinking that.

He takes his usual mid-morning trip to the memorial stone, though his visits are much shorter than they used to be, and bemoans the fact that he’ll never see the empty surface of his desk again. It’s a bit more obnoxious than his usual stories, but he does follow it up with his tentatively positive report about his marriage, and the trepidation he has that he isn’t as worried as he should be. Rin and Obito would each have a lot to say about that, he thinks wistfully, before he slinks back to work. 

The afternoon continues in much the same fashion, except for one spot of amusement partway through his perusal of Iwagakure’s proposed chuunin exam timeline. 

With his window open, Kakashi can hear the dulcet tones of someone nearby chastising people very firmly. He can’t make out much very clearly, but he knows that voice and he definitely knows that tone. He pushes his chair back until he can rest his elbow on the sill of the open window. The breeze outside is just a degree or two short of pleasantly warm, and he lets it ruffle his hair and the distant drone of Iruka’s scolding fades into the back of his mind as he begins to draft a reply to the Tsuchikage about his thoughts on the exams.

When his day finally draws to an end — that is, when he’s finally had enough of stamping things with his name while simultaneously thanking people for their kind words, and around the time that he knows Academy supplemental lessons have wound down — he forces himself to step away. Before getting married, Kakashi tended to leave whenever he felt like it, which was usually around eight or nine, since there was no one waiting at home for him to arrive any earlier. Then he would go to the training grounds for an hour or so, make himself a simple dinner, and then read before turning in by midnight.

He doesn’t think Iruka would necessarily care if he continued keeping the same schedule, but something about the thought of Iruka eating his meal alone in an empty house seems ill-mannered of Kakashi to allow. So, at least for today, he wraps up his work to coincide with Iruka’s work day. He shoos Shizune from her station too, refusing to let her stay any longer than he does because he doesn’t want to find out that she’s fallen asleep at her desk again the next day.

Kakashi intends to walk over to the Academy to see if Iruka is ready to return home yet, but is surprised to see him waiting outside the main doors of the administrative building when Kakashi exits.

“Iruka-sensei, you’re here. Did I keep you waiting?”

“No, I’ve only been here a few minutes. Don’t worry; we didn’t agree to a meeting or anything,” he assures Kakashi when he feels the confusion in Kakashi’s expression. “And stop calling me sensei.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Kakashi says, not sorry at all. “What can your Hokage do for you today?”

“I’m not here on business! I wanted to walk you home,” Iruka says, gesturing down the short path from the administrative building to their house.

Kakashi snorts and they fall into step together. “You’re quite the gentleman.”

“One of us should be.”

They share a smile, until Kakashi remembers his plan to go grocery shopping. They didn’t manage to purchase everything he wanted yesterday while trundling around with all their gifts. “I’m sorry to pop a hole in your chivalrous gesture, but I was going to go buy ingredients for sukiyaki before heading home. You can go on ahead-”

“Oh, then we’ll go together,” Iruka says, so they make their way down to the markets. The hullabaloo is less than it was during the weekend, though there are still plenty of people staring as they go about their shopping.

Kakashi remembers, as he watches Iruka ask the woman at the counter about sale-price tofu, that Iruka had his share of congratulations today as well.

“So, you received some visitors today,” he mentions once Iruka has the soft tofu he likes. Kakashi hasn’t the heart to tell him it’ll fall apart in the sukiyaki.

Iruka groans in annoyance, and almost jostles Kakashi’s hand into someone else as he tries to put more mushrooms in their basket. “Some of these full-grown shinobi never learned turn-taking, I swear. I tried to tell them nicely that I was in the middle of starting team placements with Daikoku-sensei, but they were refusing to take the hint, so I had to raise my voice. I received a lot of flowers from the students though, which was sweet. How was it on your end?”

“Anywhere from cute to unbearable. The genin teams were very nice; their sensei not so much. I think I’ll be demoting a few jounin for a couple of months.” He stops to scratch his chin, and mutters, “Might bust Genma back down to a genin again, actually.”

“I’m sure that will go over well,” Iruka says, unable to keep the dry amusement from his voice.

“Oh, by the way, did you know you were little Okamoto Aiko’s first crush? I think she was a bit heartbroken that I stole you away from her.”

“I- what? Me?” Iruka laughs incredulously, his hand coming up to muss up his ponytail. “No, you must be mistaken. She spent a lot of time making eyes at the Yamanaka boy in her year.” He picks up a gigantic head of cauliflower and Kakashi has to remove it from his grasp and put it back down.

“I’m serious. Not just her — poor young Masaru-kun, too, seemed put out, especially when he was telling me to treat you well.”

“He wasn’t even in my class!”

“Neither was Iwashi, and he still-”

“No, I don’t want to hear it!” Iruka exclaims, trying very hard not to laugh as he bodily attempts to shush Kakashi, who wrests back control of the basket and continues telling him how _disappointed_ all the tokujou seemed at their announcement.

“If I’d known how popular you were, I never would have proposed. The last thing I want is a ANBU mutiny on my hands because you’ve seduced all of them too.”

“You’re ridiculous, do you know that?” Iruka says while he pushes some very random assortment of greens into Kakashi’s hands as some desperate defense mechanism. Kakashi accepts them anyway.

“And _you_ are apparently the heartthrob of the village.”

“Like you’re one to talk! Ayame says she still can’t forget the sight of your face, and it’s been years since she’s seen it.”

“No, she’s just happy to see me because she knows I’ll get suckered into paying for Naruto’s entire meal.”

“Fine, even if Ayame isn’t really a fan, you’ve definitely captivated some unsuspecting citizens. There are village-wide rumors about what you really look like under the mask. Do you know how many people are obsessed with you?”

“At least a hundred, I’d wager. I’m still on a lot of hit lists and bingo books out there.”

Iruka’s sigh feels almost like a reward of some sort. “You’re insufferable, Kakashi-san.” Until he pulls out the honorific again.

“And you’re a worthy opponent, Iruka-sensei,” Kakashi says, reluctantly impressed when Iruka manages to finagle the basket out of his hands again as they split apart to make way for a young family passing them on their way to the cashier.

Kakashi would have thought that Iruka was the type to hurry home after errands, but he seems unbothered by Kakashi’s leisurely pace away from the marketplace. They stroll next to one another in peace and quiet and it feels like something that Kakashi wouldn’t mind allowing to become a habit.

Iruka enters the house first when they arrive, and on a whim, Kakashi says, “I’m home,” after following him in.

He gets a dry look in response, but Iruka does also say, “Welcome back,” as they remove their shoes, so he takes it as a win.

Their sukiyaki does not blow up in their faces, though Iruka’s tofu does dissolve into bits, and his knife work in the kitchen still leaves a lot to be desired. They make a good cleaning team, though they haven’t quite learned one another’s rhythms and patterns of movement yet. Afterwards, Iruka sits beside him on the couch, a proper distance between the two of them, and they commiserate about the well-meaning but deeply annoying people in their lives.

Talking to Iruka has always felt simple. Iruka is a respectful person by default, but he’s never been daunted by Kakashi’s reputation or rank, and it makes it easy for them to fall into conversation. This still holds true, but now Kakashi finds himself curious about whether it will remain this way in the months and years to come. Even married couples who are actually in love run out of things to say to one another eventually. It would be a pity if his friendship with Iruka were to go down the same path.

At least for now, nothing much has changed between them, besides the bashfulness that hits whenever they decide who’s changing clothes where, but they seem to be falling into a reliable pattern there too.

He’s even learning to adjust to sleeping on his side of the bed with the weight and the warmth of his husband right beside him. Tonight again, Iruka nods off first, his breaths turning steady and even and then Kakashi is left to follow him into dreamland after letting his heartbeat and mind slow.

But on this night a speedy sleep eludes him, so Kakashi muses over the last three days, and tries to draw a conclusion based on how he’s felt about the new status quo, but he doesn’t come up with anything definitive besides vague, positive impressions. There could prove to be further bumps in the road ahead, but neither of them are strangers to adverse circumstances. It feels like they were each already living 80% of this life on their own, and have merely slotted those parts together into a more cohesive unit. 

Is this what the next ten years of his life are going to be like? 

That wouldn’t be so difficult. 

It might even be kind of enjoyable.

\--

It’s terribly easy to fall into a routine.

Every weekday morning, Kakashi rouses first, and every weekday morning, after brushing his teeth, he wakes Iruka with a gentle hand to his shoulder. He tried a more exciting approach that involved live music once, and almost got stabbed in the throat for his attempt.

One of the new highlights of his day is those brief few minutes when Iruka sits straight up, his hair a cloudy mess and his eyes hazy, and mumbles out half-coherent answers to each of Kakashi’s random questions as he tries to gather the motivation to climb out of bed. They never talk about anything of significance; but it’s the most morning conversation Kakashi ever shares with anyone before Shizune, Kotetsu, or Izumo come knocking at the office door.

“What do you think about Kiba’s new look?” Kakashi asks today as he pulls his mask on and Iruka squints at him as if he’s too bright. Kakashi hands him his hairbrush and a green hair tie.

“Don’t like the beard,” Iruka admits sedately as he takes the offered items and begins neatening himself. The blanket lies pooled in his lap and his eyes remain half-lidded as if he hasn’t fully committed to consciousness yet, even as his gaze follows Kakashi wandering around the room.

“Mm, it’s pretty scraggly. Tsume should show him the old family photos of Sou; it didn’t work for him either.”

“He was the one on a team with Akimichi Nana?” At Kakashi’s nod, Iruka smiles and pulls himself off the mattress. “Do you remember his ninken? When Sou’s hair grew too long, they started to look alike-”

“Yeah, the fringe in the front-”

“Yes! Can you believe his hair is the same exact color as her fur?”

“The really unbelievable part was that he never noticed,” Kakashi says, flitting around Iruka, who stretches his arms wide as he walks to the bathroom. After a few months, they’ve become familiar with the way the other moves, and they’ve started to compose the well-worn dance of two people navigating the same living space whether alert, sleepy, drunk, or confused.

Kakashi is usually the one to prepare them a quick breakfast, though Iruka has become adept at helping with the smaller tasks. They leave the house together while the sun is still low in the sky, unless one has an engagement earlier than the other, and part ways shortly afterwards.

And then they don’t usually see each other again, except for lunchtime on Fridays, until early evening, when Kakashi exits his office to usually find Iruka waiting for him at the doors. Kakashi’s decision that first day back to work has informed his schedule for the remainder of the month, and now he’s begun to expect to leave his office by six p.m., instead of three hours later. That isn’t to say that there aren’t nights he has to stay longer, but he’s taken to going through the ceremony of stepping outside to let Iruka know in person that he should go on ahead.

“You could just stick your head out and shout it to me,” Iruka mentions once, when Kakashi leaps out the window to tell him that he has a rescheduled meeting with the technology department.

“Ah, but then I wouldn’t get the chance to see your face.”

“You have excellent vision and the window is just right there,” Iruka says, unimpressed by Kakashi’s charm. He points in the direction of an irritated Shizune now sticking _her_ head out to glare down at Kakashi. “But thanks for letting me know. Can I bring you dinner? I was thinking about getting katsudon for takeout; I know you don’t like fried food but this place has a good gyudon as well.”

“That would be very kind, thank you.”

“I’ll leave it at Shizune-san’s desk, then. Good luck with your work.” He raises his hand as if to ruffle Kakashi’s hair, before making a startled face as if he realizes he’s not talking to a student, and pats him strangely on the shoulder instead. Kakashi is nice enough not to laugh at him for it.

If Iruka is not standing by the doors, then Kakashi has come to expect that he’s been spirited off somewhere by Naruto or his friends for a drink, so Kakashi either goes off to train alone or to find and bother Gai. But on most of the days they do leave together, Kakashi convinces Iruka to come train with him before they go home for dinner. Iruka makes for a good sparring partner, especially with his knowledge of obscure fuinjutsu and some unusual and innovative evasive maneuvers and traps. All that prankster knowledge got channeled into a productive collection of skills.

When they head home, Kakashi makes certain to allow Iruka to enter the house first so that he can be welcomed home. Iruka puts up with this behavior good-naturedly, though he does on occasion push Kakashi through the door first and steal his shtick.

Dinner is decompression time for them, as they chat about their day while cooking. Afterwards, they’ll usually sit in the living room together, each doing their own thing. They’re both independent people, so neither finds it disagreeable to sit in relative silence working on their own thing, just as it also isn’t uncomfortable to talk or complain to each other while trying to catch up on paperwork they’ve taken home with them. One of the things they do start doing together is tuning into this very soapy, overacted drama that Naruto and Sakura forced them to watch once while visiting. Kakashi is pretty sure that neither he nor Iruka actually like it very much, but each egregious and absurd cliffhanger leaves them groaning with the knowledge that they’re going to continue watching.

Their weekends are more variable, but the new pattern of their lives has already become familiar after a few months.

Kakashi likes that Iruka has his own hobbies and strange little habits that Kakashi has begun to file away in his mental folder of information on his husband that’s ever-growing. They vary from tiny inconsequential details, like the way Iruka pushes his sleeves up instead of folding the cuffs back before starting to wash the dishes, which means they always end up sliding back down and Kakashi winds up having to fold them for him anyway, to more important matters like how he organizes his seals and the fact that he hates mixed rice.

Iruka, in turn, seems to have noticed that Kakashi is more wary of approaches from his left side, despite having two fully functional eyes now, and that he is a hopeless doodler if he becomes distracted. Within a week, Iruka starts using his ink removal jutsu on the more important of Kakashi’s paperwork when he notices the scribbles.

For the most part they learn to accommodate one another’s quirks, though there are certain things each of them does that must annoy the other. For Kakashi, it’s the way Iruka pauses in doorways sometimes when he gets stuck on a thought, and Kakashi has to slide around him. In exchange, he’s seen the way Iruka’s forehead creases when Kakashi leaves his books scattered on any kind of surface that isn’t a table or shelf. They’ve certainly squabbled a bit over the best way to fold laundry and what kind of dish detergent to buy. But they’re adults and they’re both level-headed enough to accept the minuscule irritations that come with cohabitation.

It’s a larger topic that has Kakashi mildly concerned. The one that currently weighs on his mind is this: Iruka always sequesters himself in the bathroom whenever Kakashi begins disrobing in his presence. Kakashi is worried that he may be unintentionally terrorizing his husband with his bare chest, but he hasn’t had the chance to ask yet, and while he’s quickly grown accustomed to Iruka’s presence in all his spaces, he doesn’t know if Iruka feels the same. He hasn’t noticed any obvious discomfort; if anything, Iruka has become more casually tactile with Kakashi than he ever was before. Tapping his fingertips against Kakashi’s knee to catch his attention, bracing the flat of his palm against Kakashi’s shoulder blade as he passes by, using Kakashi’s forearm as a handhold as he reaches down to shuck off his shoes.

Almost only in their home, of course, because Iruka is very cognizant of Kakashi’s position and obviously tries to avoid drawing attention to themselves as a couple. Also because he’s aware that Kakashi’s defenses are higher in public, and Iruka knows better than to spring unannounced contact on people who aren’t Naruto. In some ways, Kakashi is his opposite. When they’re in the comfort of their own home, he finds that sharing a room and conversation is a pleasant amount of closeness, but when they’re outside he finds it easy to brush his fingertips against Iruka’s palm when handing him something, or to bump his arm against Iruka’s when they walk to the market together. A tiny physical reminder that both the public and private parts of his life are real, and that these days home is starting to feel more like a person than a place. It’s as if the space around him is meant to unfold to include Iruka too, like they’ve become some kind of paired set.

But despite all this, Kakashi is here, splashing water on his face and trying to figure out how to tactfully bring up the fact that he’s okay spending the rest of his life changing in the bathroom if it would make Iruka feel safer. But tact is a little left of his skillset, so he settles on drying himself off and just diving into the matter to be done with it.

He finds Iruka seated atop the covers, scanning a passage of Icha Icha Innocence and looking increasingly baffled as he reaches the bottom of the page.

“Enjoying some light reading before bed?” Kakashi asks, sitting at the edge of the mattress and steeling himself for their talk.

“Why does this man carry contraceptives with him when he goes fishing? How is that at all logical?” Iruka demands, waving the book at Kakashi, who snags it out of his grip.

“He’s just very prepared!”

“For _what?_ ” Iruka sputters, his face aggrieved.

“I could tell you, but that would be a spoiler,” Kakashi says with a wink, to which Iruka scrunches his face in disgust. It’s quickly becoming one of Kakashi’s favorite expressions of his.

“Never mind, I don’t need to know.”

“You shouldn’t start in the- no, wait. I didn’t come out here to talk to you about Icha Icha. Iruka,” he starts, and then stops because his confounded words have escaped him. 

“Yes?” Iruka prods. He’s sitting cross-legged in a worn sleeping yukata even though it isn’t quite summer yet, and Kakashi feels his arms break out into goose-pimples just looking at his bare skin protected only by thin fabric. Between the two of them, Iruka is the one who tends to run hot, while Kakashi has long grown used to having corpse-cold fingertips in the winter, but still, the way patches of the fabric have grown threadbare enough to reveal hints of skin certainly can’t be good even for a furnace like Iruka. Kakashi becomes momentarily distracted by the thought of whether they should get the yukata mended or simply purchase a new one.

Then Iruka leans forward to show he’s engaged in whatever Kakashi has to say, but closing the gap between them only makes Kakashi more dry-mouthed and foolish.

“I’m sorry I keep taking my clothes off,” is what exits his mouth without any further proofreading or processing. Incredible. Kakashi sends a brief prayer for someone to accidentally blow up his office or sneak into the scroll archives so that he can transport away from this conversation which he made the mistake of initiating.

“You- what?” Iruka’s face is a beautiful painting of disturbed confusion, and Kakashi thinks he finally sees where Naruto gets it from. 

“Let me try that again. I’ve...noticed that you don’t seem comfortable remaining in the room when I undress, and I wanted to tell you that I don’t mind switching places if you’d like. I don’t want you to feel obligated to hide in the bath every day for the rest of our marriage.”

“Hiding in the-” Iruka trails off as he takes a second to digest Kakashi’s words and then dread makes its way into his expression.

They begin speaking at the same exact moment. “I’m sorry. I don’t want you to think that _I_ think that _you-_ ”

“I don’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable-”

Iruka blanches, and then raises his arms to hastily wave his hands in the air. “No, no- I don’t- um, it’s fine. Please don’t think you’re doing anything wrong. It isn’t that I have a problem with staying in the room, or even changing in front of you. I mean, everyone’s stripped down in the field at some point, right?” He laughs a bit nervously, one hand coming up to comb through his hair in an anxious tic. He looks tentatively unsure as he continues, “It’s just that these were your spaces first, and I didn’t want to intrude any further than I already have. You’ve given up so much to me already.”

“So you were trying to preserve my privacy,” Kakashi tries.

“Yes! That’s- that’s exactly it. You’re still entitled to your own personal space. Just because we’re married doesn’t mean you should have to let me take over every part of your house.”

He looks incredibly sincere, and Kakashi doesn’t know when he came to the conclusion that he was intruding on Kakashi’s life, or if Kakashi has been doing something to encourage this thought. “I don’t think of you that way at all,” he insists. “If anyone has been making sacrifices it’s you, Iruka. I’ve asked you to completely overturn your life just to help me out of a bind, and now I have you feeling unwelcome in your own home-”

“Unwelcome is really too strong of a word-” 

“Walking on eggshells, then.”

“Even that’s a bit-” Iruka breaks off that train of thought and chews on his lip for a second as he tries to gather his words. He eventually places a firm hand on Kakashi’s knee, as a reassurance, surely, and says, “Look, I don’t feel at all uneasy in our home. It’s very much the opposite, really. I just don’t know if you feel the same.”

Kakashi, distracted by the warmth of Iruka’s hand and that fervent shine in his eyes, can only confess to him the truth: “Of course I do. I did make you a promise: I am your partner, and everything I can offer you is yours. That includes our home and my companionship. I respect you enough to tell you outright if something is bothering me, so please don’t put yourself out for no reason.”

Iruka nods as he absorbs this information. He draws his hand away and Kakashi tries not to feel like he’s lost something in the process. “Okay. Then can you also trust me to tell you the same? I chose to accept your proposal. I’m your partner as much as you are mine, and at least in this regard we’ll always stand on equal ground. I’ll agree to be less cautious if you agree that you’ll trust me to know what I want.”

“I can do that.”

“Perfect. And if it wouldn’t bother you, then perhaps I’ll just avert my eyes from now on instead of leaving.” There’s a hint of humor in his voice, and Kakashi realizes with previously unseen clarity that they’ll be okay. Just as he believes that Iruka will always make the best decision he can in his capacity as an instructor and as a ninja, he also knows that Iruka approaches each aspect of their marriage with only the best intentions. As set in certain ways as they each are, they both know how to communicate when it comes to the important matters. Kakashi might rather take a suiton to the face than delve into his feelings with other people, but things like this he can handle.

“Wonderful,” he says in agreement. “Feel free to go or stay as you please.”

“I suppose since I’ve already seen under the mask, there aren’t many further lines to cross, anyway,” Iruka jokes, and Kakashi smiles sunnily back.

“Hm, well, since you keep dashing off so quickly, you haven’t had the pleasure of seeing my full-body mask. It stretches from shoulder to toe— quite comfortably, if you’re interested.”

There it is again, that horrified flash that makes Iruka’s forehead wrinkle in disturbance and his mouth draw thin. But it quickly smooths away like the still air that precedes a storm.

“A bodysuit, basically? So you’ve been taking fashion tips from Gai-sensei! I’m sure he’ll be thrilled to hear that.”

This time it’s Kakashi who’s left looking distraught.

\--

The big event that Kakashi suspected was on the horizon finally arrives at the end of spring, three months after the wedding. Shizune delivers the invitation to him herself, and they both make a face at the glittery golden dust that’s left behind on her hand after she places the scroll on his desk.

“So it’s come to this,” he says gravely as he reads the beautiful calligraphy inside.

“Just like we knew it would. Still, this is much better than the alternative, isn’t it?”

“It is. You were right, Shizune. Remind me to book you an extended stay at that onsen you like-” 

“I’ll just take care of it myself, Kakashi-sama,” Shizune says quickly, knowing that it’ll be easier for her that way.

“Sure thing. Give yourself as long as you like.” She deserves it, what with the purple rings gathering beneath her eyes on her pale face.

“As long as I like?” he hears Shizune muttering while she walks away. “What if I just never came back? What then?” He’s glad she can’t see him smiling behind his mask.

He puts the invitation out of his mind until it’s time to head home; when the time comes, he’s already running behind because of his late-afternoon meeting with the hospital board, and he barely remembers to grab the blasted scroll on his way out with his arms full of other things that need quick signatures by tomorrow.

Izumo almost runs into him as they each turn the hallway bend, but has the sense to step aside and avoid the awkward side-step shuffle.

“Are you still here?” Kakashi looks at the notebooks in Izumo’s hand and shakes his head. “You should collect Kotetsu and go home.”

“Sorry, there’s some kind of mixup in the report filing room we need to sort out first. You go on ahead, Kakashi-sama. Wouldn’t do to keep Iruka waiting; he can be a stickler about tardiness.” His laugh is fond and knowing in a way that speaks to a long friendship; Kakashi envies the wealth of trivial knowledge and old stories he must have about Iruka, but now isn’t the time to ask.

“I’ll trust you two to handle it, then. And seriously, how many times do we have to talk about the honorifics,” Kakashi grumbles, but Izumo just ignores the implied request, like everyone in the village does.

“That’s going to be a pain to wash out,” he says, gesturing at the gold dust on Kakashi’s gloves.

“Want a high-five?” Kakashi asks him, watching as he darts away with a “no thanks, Kakashi-sama!”

Kakashi makes the short trip back and enters the house to the scent of broiled chicken wafting from the kitchen. Iruka’s confidence in his cooking ability has grown since their first time making dinner together, and now he likes to poke around and experiment when he’s on his own or Naruto is staying over. Their house hasn’t burned down yet, so Kakashi is all for it. He’s even a little excited for any potential future fires.

Naruto isn’t here today, which is for the best since he’d probably ask to tag along for fun. Though, perhaps the sudden acquisition of an heir would put Kakashi even higher in the daimyo’s regard? But the amount of explaining he would have to do — yes, this is my dear husband and his precious son; right, you probably recognize him as the reason we’re all still alive today- I _am_ proud, but the honor belongs to Iruka, really — is unlikely to be worth the brownie points.

“Did you fall asleep in front of the hospital board again?” Iruka’s voice asks cheekily as Kakashi enters the living room to put down all his work at the table. 

“How could I ever do something so disrespectful when I know Shimizu-san would genjutsu me into attending an endless medical conference if I tried?” Kakashi jokes back as he steps into the kitchen. Iruka is moving his pieces of chicken thigh from the baking tray to a platter. His sleeves are falling down his arms again as always, he’s surrounded by more dirty bowls than Kakashi was aware that they owned, and there’s a smudge of sauce high on his cheek; Kakashi feels abruptly fond of this absurd creature who can spot a mission report error in twenty seconds flat while holding two children under his arms like sacks of rice, but who has managed to spill cornstarch all across the right side of his shirt. There’s also an entire branch worth of leaves and twigs in his ponytail.

“You, ah- you’ve got leaves in your hair,” Kakashi mentions, feeling immediately dull afterwards, because there’s no way that Iruka doesn’t already know.

“You have glitter in yours,” Iruka points out as he approaches the dining table with his chicken, looking bemused. Kakashi glances upwards, even though it’s a pointless endeavor. He must have run a hand through his hair at some point, regretfully.

“Would you believe me if I said it was a fashion statement?” Kakashi asks as he starts to set the table.

“Probably as much as you would believe me if I said the same?”

Kakashi laughs low in his throat and takes the bowl of plain rice and carrots that Iruka passes him. “Why don’t you go first; your story is bound to be more exciting than mine.”

Iruka reaches up to pluck a spindly twig out of his hair as they sit down across from one another. “Some of the more proactive little hellions in my class decided to make a competition out of who could sneak more sticks into my hair when we were out in the yard for drills. Fumiko-chan was ahead last I heard.”

“And you didn’t take them to task? My, my. You’re growing soft, Iruka-sensei.” 

Iruka just shakes his head. “It’s good to give them a win sometimes, especially if they’re working on vital skills while doing it.”

“I see. It’s extra practice disguised as getting away with a prank.”

“That, and it makes it more satisfying when I turn it around on them when their guards are down.” A small smile sneaks its way into Iruka’s face. “I heard muttering about trying to splash me with mud next time. I’m thinking it might be a good chance for a practical demonstration of a basic substitution jutsu.”

Kakashi laughs and lifts his glass of water in an informal toast to this delicious plan. “I might drop in for a visit tomorrow, then.”

“If you promise not to give me away. Your turn. I’m going to assume you didn’t go out clubbing with Shizune-san right before your meeting.”

“Not yet, though I might convince her yet. We have an invitation to visit the daimyo for his youngest daughter’s twentieth birthday.” He gets up to retrieve the scroll and puts it on the table between them, next to their dinner. Iruka eyes it with extreme prejudice.

“I see,” he says calmly, though his face is clearly shouting, _how much of a diplomatic snafu would it be if we just didn’t go_.

“I know, but we have to.”

“I didn’t say anything!” Iruka protests, clicking his chopsticks together around nothing.

“You didn’t have to; your face always does enough talking,” Kakashi says with a grin as he serves himself more carrots.

Iruka frowns, and reaches up to pat at his own cheeks. “Am I really that transparent?”

“Perhaps my Iruka-face-translator is just very well-tuned. Anyway, I’ll get us the appropriate clothes. You’ve done diplomacy missions before, correct?”

“A few. I know how to flatter nobles and how to stand on the sidelines looking inoffensive. It’s going to be a bit more than that, I assume.” He reaches out to pick up the scroll, then glances at Kakashi’s still somewhat sparkly hands and thinks better of it, taking a clean spoon to help him unspool it. “Um, I could probably talk politics or arts for a little while, but I think this whole thing might be a step above what I have experience with.” 

“Just a bit. They’ll probably harass me more than you, but you can expect a lot of questions about our marriage. If it’s private, I’ll trust your judgment to tell them whatever you see fit. If it’s business, follow protocol.”

“Understood. Wow, it really has been a while since I’ve taken an actual mission. Looking back, I don’t know how I juggled three jobs for as long as I did.” Even now, between his dual duties as vice-principal and part-time Academy instructor, Iruka still gets roped into running damage control at the mission desk or hunting down misplaced files on occasion. If Izumo’s filing room mishap goes on for longer than two days, Kakashi is certain that Iruka will be called upon to consult soon enough.

“Workaholic tendencies plus a strong dash of stubbornness, I suspect. Anyway, I’m sure you’re still in good form.”

“I hope so, with the amount of training you subject me to.” 

“Aren’t you the one who always says that every good ninja keeps their skills in top condition through discipline and training?”

“Someone’s been using clones to spy on my class again,” Iruka says, crossing his arms. He has the same frown on his face that he got when Anko claimed she could still go another round while he was already piggybacking her back to her apartment. Kakashi wanted to offer his help that time he witnessed it, but it was already old hat to Iruka, who undid Anko’s wards and maneuvered her onto her futon with practiced ease before leaving her with a glass of water for the morning.

“Never mind that now,” Kakashi says quickly, before he can get chewed out the same way as Drunk Anko. “Tell me about your lunch date with Konohamaru.”

Iruka gives him a knowing look, but accepts his change in subject without complaint.

  


The daimyo’s celebration arrives upon them rapidly, but as Iruka is a quick study, he’s gotten down the names of the lords and ladies he hadn’t already known and their clans and updated relationships and dirty histories by the time they’re on their way. They’re accompanied by two ANBU, as is standard protocol when Kakashi goes anywhere outside the village these days, but it feels a bit silly as the entire castle is already swarming with Konoha nin, dispatched to play bodyguard to all the nobles floating around the hall.

“I forgot that a fourth of the village would be here,” Iruka mutters after they greet and bow their way into the castle. As if hearing his words, Tenten, hidden in the shade of the wall, twiddles her fingers at them as they pass, and they each nod minutely in acknowledgement.

“It’s nice, isn’t it? To see so many familiar faces among the crowd?”

“No, because we’re all dolled up as if we don’t also belong in the shadows with them.”

Kakashi knows exactly what he means. He’s always found parties generally too much trouble to be worth attending, which is why Gai tries to spring him into celebrations whenever possible. But this is three steps above a festival gathering or a baby shower, and in his ridiculous ceremonial robes, he’s reminded again of how ill-fitting his entire tenure as Hokage is. He has no idea how his predecessors dealt with all this. 

Iruka glides through the hall with intentionally light-footed steps beside him, moving less like a trained ninja and more like a civilian accustomed to looking ornamental. He and Kakashi do not touch, but the limited space between them makes it clear what their affiliation is, even without the brand of any clan markers upon Iruka’s kimono. They only make it several steps further before the endless parade of introductions and small-talk begins.

They handle it as a duo for a little while, until Kakashi gets directed toward some of the old warhawks to talk about the future of Konoha’s alliances, and Iruka gets whisked away by some lesser lords who want to know more about him, this unknown suddenly thrown into their midst like a lamb into the lion’s den. Kakashi manages to catch Iruka’s quick hand signals that confirm he’ll be fine taking it on alone, before he’s stuck talking treaties again.

Thankfully they’re called to dine before too long, which limits interaction to just their immediate seat neighbors. Kakashi keeps a third of his attention on his own conversation, another third on the room as a whole, and the final third on Iruka talking to the daimyo’s cousin about irrigation practices for some strange reason. There’s no reason to suspect danger, but he can’t help staying aware of each body in the large space and all the chakra signatures he feels hovering outside the room. He spends the rest of dinner half tuned into other people’s conversations just to give himself the semblance of the old days, when he didn’t have to do any of the talking at all.

The young woman whose birthday they’re celebrating gives a little thank you speech, and as they toast her Kakashi takes note of how genteel and young she looks, and silently thanks Iruka from saving him from spending his life with one of these silk-skinned cotton-fluff nobles barely older than his own genin team. Iruka must notice Kakashi’s quick glance at him, because he quirks just the slightest smile before he takes a sip from his cup.

When the food is cleared away they return to milling with purpose, as they await their turn to be rewarded with the daimyo’s presence. Iruka avoids giving up any meaningful information about their relationship to the people he speaks to, while simultaneously making them feel like they’ve been allowed a glimpse into the Hokage’s private life. Good at avoidance, just like Kakashi has always known. Kakashi’s long-standing reputation as being an irritating mix of elusive, abrasive, and disingenuous serves him well, and keeps most questions at a minimum and contained only to the usual kage talking points. People thought for a while that becoming Hokage would make him more personable, but it’s really just made him more tired.

By the time the daimyo summons them forward, Iruka has fostered the impression among the nobility that he’s that perfect combination of genial, practical, and long-suffering that clan spouses often are, and it endears him to most of the people they meet. It’s not far from the truth, though the shy hint of affection in his voice is a finely crafted fiction.

People clear out of the way when a retainer calls them up, and then they’re seated alone with their lord and two of his personal bodyguards, for which Kakashi is grateful. The thought of Tenzou or Genma or someone standing there listening to the drivel that’s about to come out of his mouth is deeply grating.

“So you received word of my intentions and got yourself married off before then, eh?” the daimyo asks, eying the two of them shrewdly after they go through the requisite formalities.

Got it in one. Kakashi is about to launch into the sickeningly obsequious excuse Shizune and Raidou helped him come up with before Iruka places his fingertips delicately atop Kakashi’s wrist, stopping him in his tracks.

“Forgive me, my lord, but it is my fault that he had to turn down your gracious offer,” Iruka says in a low tone, bowing his head.

“Oh?” the daimyo says, turning to Iruka with his brow raised. Kakashi’s shoulders are stiff in anticipation of a misstep, but he also wants to trust Iruka, so he remains silent.

“I know this marriage seems very sudden to many in the village as well. Our relationship began years earlier, but I thought it wiser to wait for less turbulent times before we wed, my lord. Kakas- ah, Rokudaime-sama is, after all, one of the greatest assets to Konohagakure, and I did not want to risk our enemies exploiting our relationship to bring harm to our country. It was only recently that we decided that this was finally the right time to make our bond known to our people, given the hard won peace that has finally settled across the world. I hope you will forgive our deception.”

Iruka speaks with a very determined earnestness that can’t be faked, even when he’s telling half-truths. It’s in the eyes, Kakashi thinks. No one ever suspects such guileless eyes, especially of a cherished schoolteacher. The daimyo’s face slowly softens from its rigid set, and he’s nodding wisely at Iruka’s words by the end of his little confession.

“I forget that court politics are a somewhat different beast from shinobi affairs. You have endured greatly as the Hokage’s companion, Umino-kun,” he says indulgently, like a grandparent who has decided to allow his grandchildren to eat an unhealthy snack after all. “I can see how you make a fitting husband for the leader of our grand village.” Kakashi isn’t sure how; their esteemed lord has only seen them together up close for a total of eight minutes, but he isn’t going to complain.

“I am humbled by your kind words,” Iruka says, bowing even lower. Kakashi does the same.

“Thank you very much for your patience and your benevolence in the face of our impertinence,” Kakashi says.

The daimyo looks pleased at their groveling, but waves their apology off with the heavy nonchalance of someone who knows they hold power over others. “Ah, it’s probably for the best. None of my children are prepared for life as a ninja’s spouse anyway. Though both Kimiko and Kei were hoping to be the one to finally unmask the great Hatake Kakashi.”

“Alas, I’m afraid Iruka can attest to the fact that what lies beneath is really not such a lofty honor to behold.”

“He is maligning himself,” Iruka says conspiratorially to the daimyo, who chortles as if truly amused.

Iruka entertains him with a few choice tales of Academy life, until their allotted time is up. They leave the daimyo with him in high spirits, and Kakashi and Iruka holding in their sighs of relief as they blend back into the throng. When they have a moment’s respite from the crowd, Kakashi leans into Iruka’s space, still never close enough to touch, to murmur, “Mission successful. Excellent work.”

Iruka eyes are directed upwards, admiring the beautifully patterned ceiling panels as he replies, “It’s what I’m here for.”

“I’ll add it to your list of completed missions.”

“This one isn’t exactly one I can flaunt.”

“Most S-ranks are confidential…”

Iruka barks out a laugh and then hastily clears his throat to pretend he did no such thing when someone else glances their way. “Nice flattery. But it won’t get you anywhere. It’s still your turn to dust the windowsills this week.”

“Can’t fault me for trying.”

  


They make the return trip that very same evening once the festivities are over, because neither likes to be far from Konoha for so long when so many personnel are also absent. The journey is unremarkable, and Kakashi dismisses his guard as soon as they pass the gates. As they walk home, Iruka releases a mighty groan as he cracks his back and Kakashi fakes a scandalized gasp at the terrible noise. 

“Oh, hush,” Iruka laughs, elbowing him in the ribs as he mumbles about uncouth behavior and wild, upstart shinobi with no manners. “I’ve been fluttering around and talking nonstop all day.”

“I _was_ surprised how many people wanted to discuss agriculture with you, of all things.”

“Yeah, I don’t even know anything about farming! We wound up on a tangent about using jutsu to water crops, which was actually pretty interesting. It got me thinking that perhaps I should wander outside Konoha more often. See the civilian sights of the Land of Fire.”

“Please don’t leave us to become a farmer, Iruka-sensei. Konoha can’t afford the loss to its education department.”

Iruka pretends to mull over this plea. “I don’t know, is there any incentive for me to stay?”

“Besides the precious, smiling faces of your dear students?”

“Yes, besides the obvious,” Iruka says while rolling his eyes.

“Anything you want,” Kakashi offers generously, observing the way Iruka rumples his kimono as he stretches his arms. “I’m quite serious, by the way. Your Hokage will do you one favor for your service today.” He knows it isn’t in Iruka’s nature to ask for anything too extravagant.

It only takes Iruka a moment to think before he asks, “Can- can I see the ninken?”

That wasn’t what Kakashi expected, and he knows the surprise is probably evident on his face. “Yes, of course. You’ve signed the summons contract with them as well; you don’t need to ask me for permission.” 

“I know, but it still felt like the proper thing to do. We’ve only been introduced the once. Oh, besides Pakkun.”

“They’ll be thrilled to see you. Anyone who can get me to buy them the nice beef is in their good graces forever.”

Kakashi pauses momentarily at the door of their home when he feels the presence of someone else inside, but it only takes half a second for him to realize that it’s only Naruto. As expected, their student is lounging on the couch flipping through a book — one of Iruka’s manuals on proper weapons care, thank goodness — when they enter.

“Man, you guys look beat. Is it really that hard to sit around eating expensive food and talking to old people?” he calls over, waving.

“Naruto!” Iruka says brightly, hustling into the living room to greet him with a burst of renewed energy. Kakashi follows him at a more staid rate. “Back already from visiting Gaara?”

“Yeah, he had some kage stuff to do, so I left early. I got back this morning, but then I took a nap after hanging out with Lee and I forgot to get groceries so I came here instead,” he blurts all at once, grinning sheepishly when Iruka examines the empty bowls on their table.

“I’m glad you came to us, but we’ve gotta get you some more non-perishables tomorrow,” Iruka says as he begins cleaning up after Naruto. Kakashi stops him before he can start on the dishes.

“Go start a bath first,” Kakashi says, taking the bowls out of his hands and herding him out of the room. “You’ve been schmoozing all day and I’m getting secondhand exhaustion just from watching you.”

“I’m not tired,” Iruka tries to deny as Kakashi shoos him further down the hallway.

“You don’t like lying, you don’t like holding your tongue, and you don’t like shallow conversation or shifty politicking disguised as inane compliments; this mission was the kind that annoys you most. You’re definitely due for a relaxing soak. Go, go.” Iruka makes a squawky noise but lets Kakashi bump him through the door.

“He’s right, Iruka-sensei,” Naruto pipes up. “Just go take a bath and I’ll help Kakashi-sensei clean up.” He’s already burrowed into the space between two cushions on their couch, so Kakashi doesn’t know about that, but he says regardless, “See? Naruto will help clean up his own mess.”

“Alright, but don’t leave before I’m out!”

“He’ll stay the night. Enjoy your bath.”

Naruto does indeed slouch off the couch and help Kakashi tidy up, chattering on about Gaara and Suna as they wipe down the tables and clean the dishes. He asks about the daimyo’s event, and Kakashi gives him a blase overview, to which Naruto makes a face. 

“Sounds kinda boring.”

“That’s why I didn’t invite you. I figure you’ll get sick of it on your own soon enough.”

“Hey, yeah, that reminds me! When are you gonna start training me?”

“In a few years. You’re still more valuable to us out there in the field, assisting people through missions. It’s reassuring to them to know that you’re there to help.”

Naruto, his face turning rosy, looks as if he wants to say something else, but he just laughs with bashful pride and hums an off-key tune as they finish tidying the house. When Iruka emerges, Naruto launches into his story all over again, but Kakashi can’t much mind when Iruka looks so glad to hear it. 

Night comes upon them as they lounge on the couch, noise and fur crowding the room as Naruto helps Kakashi reacquaint Iruka with each of the ninken. This small room, filled to only a minuscule fraction as full as the grand hall they were admiring hours ago, feels so much more lively than the most extravagant parties, even with the hour whiling away far past bedtime. They’ll all feel the slight effects of sleep deprivation tomorrow, but Kakashi thinks the trouble is well worth each minute he spends watching Iruka and Naruto laughing as they welcome his ninken’s friendly paws and overeager rambling about all of Kakashi’s terrible habits.

\-- 

Sleeping beside Iruka is no great hardship. He doesn’t kick or talk in his sleep, and though he inevitably ends up with his limbs encroaching on Kakashi’s side of the bed, Kakashi doesn’t mind Iruka’s curled fingers brushing up against his side. He thought it might bother him more, might trigger a fight instinct if he encountered it in the middle of the night, but he’s already used to Iruka’s presence right beside him. 

The greatest problem is the one that plagues all shinobi.

Nightmares.

Kakashi’s have been consistent in a way that’s grown almost banal in the last twenty years. They ebb and flow like uneasy waters in a creek, and as he’s unsurprised now by everything his subconscious likes to throw back in his face whenever he starts getting too comfortable, he doesn’t have the tendency to lash out like others might do when jolting awake. His reaction is much different than the quick, instinctive urge to eliminate a threat when roused by something unexpected and carrying ill intent.

Instead, he tenses completely while searching for allies and foes alike as his eyes try to adjust to the darkness. It doesn’t take too long for him to grow accustomed to finding Iruka in the room, but the dreams don’t change and their frequency doesn’t lessen. What Kakashi needs to adjust to most is _Iruka’s_ nightmares.

Iruka shakes himself from sleep with a vigor uncharacteristic of his usual movements. The first time Kakashi feels it happen, he’s surprised by the intensity with which Iruka searches the room before finally lowering his guard. The sudden burst of aggressive movement shocks Kakashi awake, but he has enough prescience to recognize Iruka through his dissipating sleep haze, and makes the quick decision to wait his husband out. It takes about ten seconds for Iruka to ascertain the status of the room and decide that there are no threats. He notices Kakashi watching him from across the bed and ducks his head.

“Did I wake you? Sorry.”

“Don’t fret. I’m a light sleeper anyway. Are you alright?”

“Yeah, it’s just the usual,” Iruka says, with a self-conscious smile. Kakashi nods back, because in this business, everyone understands. “I’m sorry for disturbing your beauty sleep.”

“I’ll consider it payback for the times I’ve done it to you.” He’s come to expect the grounding sensation of Iruka’s hand reaching over to pet aimlessly at his arm and chest after he rouses from another haunting memory. “You’re a light sleeper too.”

“It’s hard not to be after going on those overnight Academy field trips. You never know when a student might try to sneak off and steal your shuriken for late night practice on each other.”

This isn’t untrue, but underneath it Kakashi hears what Iruka isn’t saying. What Iruka dreams of is likely a rehash of old traumas, same as everyone else, but his response upon waking is to always search the surroundings for his students, just as Kakashi’s instinct is to scan for bodies. But while Kakashi has only his own well-being to concern himself with, Iruka’s thoughts reflexively jump straight to his children and eliminating any possible threat to them. 

“That sounds like a nightmare in itself. Do you want me to bring you a glass of water?” Kakashi asks when he sees Iruka rubbing tiredly at his throat.

“No thanks, I’ll go grab it myself, stretch my legs a little bit. I’ll let you get back to sleep first. Pleasant dreams, Kakashi.”

Kakashi wonders if he should ask, but he decides that if Iruka wanted to talk about it he would say something, so he just says, “Same to you,” and watches Iruka pad out of the room.

Each incident afterwards goes much the same. Iruka wakes with sudden force and searches the room with an almost methodical desperation before he speaks briefly with Kakashi and excuses himself from their bedroom for a moment to ground himself. If Kakashi rouses from a nightmare, Iruka reaches blindly over and gives his shoulder a gentle squeeze, his hand remaining by Kakashi’s side as they trudge their way back into sleep.

Everyone in the village develops their own rituals to cope, but as both Kakashi and Iruka are apparently the “ignore it and force yourself back to sleep” type, they never wind up properly discussing the matter until it happens simultaneously to them once.

Kakashi is standing in a wide, empty field, watching his father walking due west through the feathery grasses, when the rain begins. It starts slowly, but builds into a waterfall crescendo by the time his father collapses in the distance. It takes an eternity for Kakashi to press through the soaked grass and the continuing downpour, even at full speed. When he reaches the body, he sees only Rin’s blank eyes staring back at him, and the blood trickling from her mouth, before he feels the presence of a shadow to his left and reacts accordingly.

He wakes as he turns and tenses, but unlike his usual routine of searching for chakra and steadying his breath, he feels an abrupt jolt of motion beside him and pivots all his attention toward it. He realizes too late that this is a mistake. Iruka is upon him in half a second, one hand pinning Kakashi’s wrists and the other hand pressing the blade of a kunai to his throat. His hair is wild and his pupils dilated, and Kakashi can tell that Iruka hasn’t recognized him yet.

Kakashi has the self-restraint to stop from breaking free because he doesn’t want to inflict any further guilt upon Iruka nor unintentionally harm him. “Iruka, it’s just me. Stand down,” he instructs quietly but firmly, waiting for Iruka to finally soften his hold. 

“Kakashi,” Iruka says numbly as the tension drains out of his body. He clambers away in haste, stumbling back to his side of the bed shame-faced and placing his kunai on the bedside table. “I- I’m so sorry, I was dreaming about the war again, and I- that was inexcusable-”

“It’s alright. It happens to all of us,” Kakashi says, sitting up and scooting forward until their knees touch. It feels like he can hear Iruka’s pulse even from here: rapid and guilty. He takes a bizarre moment to be glad that his ANBU guards are all posted far enough at the edge of the Hokage building compound to not have arrived outside their window until now. He can feel them waiting on high alert, but he’s sure they can see and sense the lack of any threat to his life. Entering now would exacerbate the situation much further than needed.

“Yes, but not all of us hold a blade to our Hokage’s throat in the middle of the night,” Iruka stresses. His face looks sunken and exhausted and he keeps his hands carefully folded in his lap like he’s afraid of letting them roam free.

“Be that as it may, I don’t hold it against you. I forgive you, even,” Kakashi tries, hoping that it’s what Iruka wants to hear. 

But Iruka continues to look uncomfortable and shamed. “No, I- I think I should take a walk-”

“May I come with you?” Kakashi doesn’t speak aloud the other thoughts he wants to say: _I don’t think you should be alone, I don’t want you to think this changes anything, I don’t think any less of you for this._

Iruka searches his face and it takes a conscious effort not to school his expression into its usual disaffected stare. He hopes some of what he’s feeling — the concern and the compassion — shines through, and maybe it does, because Iruka nods and waits for Kakashi to follow after he climbs out of bed.

They wander through the kitchen so Iruka can fetch his water and then they pad over to the doors that lead to the yard and open them up so they can sit upon the engawa. The night air is not so cold as to be uncomfortable, and Kakashi sits some distance from Iruka so that he doesn’t feel smothered. They don’t talk for many minutes; they just watch the heavy roundness of the moon and think too many thoughts.

Kakashi would be content with sitting here quietly until Iruka dismisses him or decides he feels settled enough to try and sleep again, but Iruka finally breaks the silence by saying, “I apologize again. It’s- it’s been a long time since I’ve slept with someone so close by, and I know I should be used to you by now, but-”

“We’ve only been together for less than half a year, and it isn’t as if we had an actual relationship to help us acclimate to one another before getting married,” Kakashi agrees. “We’re used to the other’s baseline. And I’d say we’re probably getting pretty used to grounding each other as well. But we haven’t experienced it at the same time, so tonight’s events were probably overdue.”

“Still, I feel awful threatening you in your own bed. And what if it happens again? Although, if we’re being honest- you could’ve disarmed me, but you didn’t.”

“I trusted you,” Kakashi says. And the thing is, he really did. It does help that he’s secure in his ability to incapacitate Iruka if needed, but he’s also pretty confident in the thought that Iruka has the clarity of mind to stop himself. “On the flip side, I’m serious when I say that I understand. I know you search out threats, and it was a mistake to focus all my intent on you when I knew that.”

With the unexpected attention of someone like Kakashi suddenly upon him, Iruka’s body moves faster than his half-conscious mind to strike first and process later. His tendency to assess and plan goes out the window in favor of that self-sacrificial habit of his. 

“You’re in no way to blame, stop that. You were just sizing me up as well,” Iruka counters. “You can’t help the reactions you’ve trained yourself into to keep yourself safe and sane.”

“No more than you can,” Kakashi points out, and Iruka huffs in defeat. His expression has settled from distress into that somewhat exasperated acceptance he has whenever Kakashi wears him down over some frivolous joke argument they’re having.

“Then what shall we do?”

“We’ll move forward with this new knowledge.” It’s something they’re both used to doing. Iruka could bring up the matter with his therapist, but it’s his business whether he chooses to do so. Kakashi has already catalogued this incident away as another footnote in their married life. “You didn’t try and kill me tonight, so I’m reasonably assured you won’t next time either.”

“That’s not exactly a relief, but I guess it’ll do.” The quiet settles around them again, just long enough to remind Kakashi that morning is still hours away.

“I’m here,” Kakashi says, disturbing the silence again when he feels like they might stir from their positions soon. “If you need me.” He doesn’t feel the need to elaborate how — he’s more interested in finding out how Iruka interprets his offer.

“Thank you. I think- I don’t think I’m ready to talk about it tonight, but I’ll remember that. Do you- would you like me to go back first?” 

“Let’s go together.” And so they do, but sleep comes uneasy for both of them.

  


This little hiccup doesn’t strain their relationship too much past a week’s worth of awkward nights. Kakashi reluctantly mentions the event to Dr. Fujimoto when they meet, and memorizes her advice, but the issue evens out on its own. They return to their new normal, and the next time it happens, Kakashi remembers not to announce his killing intent and Iruka remembers not to knife him in the jugular. There’s a moment where they just stare at each other in the darkness before Iruka reaches over and claps Kakashi on the arm.

“Are we alright?”

“I would say so,” Kakashi responds mildly, and Iruka flops back down onto his pillow, relieved.

“Okay! Good, we passed the first test.” 

They pass the second and third tests as well, and by the first time Iruka takes Kakashi up on his offer, they’ve adjusted about as much as they can.

It’s a hot night following a hot, interminable day, and they’re both drained in that sticky, aching way that follows a long period of endless work and mindless talking. They collapse into bed without delay, and Kakashi is out soon enough. It feels like only an instant has passed before he’s roused by Iruka’s sudden movements, but the heat and their new way of coping causes him to be sluggish in sitting up until Iruka calls his name.

“Kakashi?”

“Present, sensei.”

The stupid joke startles a laugh out of Iruka, who lifts himself off the bed and gestures for Kakashi to follow. Kakashi rolls out after him and they spend several minutes lazily fanning each other in the kitchen. The clock only reads 2:24 in the morning, which is maybe why they find themselves sitting at the table talking instead of going back to bed.

It starts off casually. Just small talk about the new construction at the jounin barracks and what Kakashi saw Aoba doing outside the karaoke bar the other day. But when the conversation lulls, Kakashi pushes himself to ask.

“What do you dream about?”

Iruka doesn’t answer right away. He rubs a fingernail along the grain of the wood, thinking. His voice is unusually faraway when he answers.

“It’s usually the regular stuff. Missions gone bad. The Kyuubi attack. Memories from the war. But sometimes- sometimes they’re about the dream. The- the infinite tsukuyomi.”

This pulls Kakashi to a halt. He has only second hand knowledge of the infinite tsukuyomi, but as far as he knows, the illusion was neither painful nor frightening. Maybe that’s what haunts Iruka the most.

“I suspect that you might not be the only one, but I can’t say I have any first hand experience myself. Is it...worse than the usual?”

“No, in most ways it’s preferable. But the guilt is what gets to me, I suppose. The shame that it’s not a nightmare. That I still think about it.”

“What was your...?” Kakashi doesn’t know how to complete the sentence. Your dream? Your ideal reality? But Iruka understands even with the way he trails off.

“My parents were alive, and I was still an Academy teacher. And Naruto was there. As- not as my son, but- but as a younger brother, I suppose.” Iruka’s laugh is humorless and brittle. “Isn’t that selfish? That even in a world where everything could be perfect — where Naruto could have his parents, where the Kyuubi never destroyed Konoha — I still wanted him to be mine?”

His eyes are sorrowful in a way that speaks to the shame he must have been feeling all this time since the war ended. Kakashi knows that many others who have held onto the tsukuyomi since then, along with the disquiet emotions that accompany its memory. He wonders sometimes what he would have seen, but it’s probably better that he doesn’t know. 

“I don’t think it’s selfish at all,” Kakashi tells Iruka truthfully. People can’t help what their hearts desire, and Iruka can’t help loving Naruto even at the end of the world. It’s admirable.

“The ideal world doesn’t exist. The Yondaime and his wife never had the chance to raise their son, and they never will. But Naruto has always had you. It’s _your_ love that saved him. And you would never take that away from him, which is why he’s still in your care in the infinite tsukuyomi. You’ve done the best for him that anyone could, and even under a genjutsu, you remembered that.” 

The heaviness in Iruka’s posture doesn’t lift, but he does seem to be comforted by Kakashi’s words. As much comfort as they can bring, at least. Kakashi knows firsthand that guilt isn’t a demon that others can fight off for you. Iruka will finish this battle through his own power, but Kakashi can do his best to dispel what doubts he can, even if it isn’t his forte.

“You’re kinder than people give you credit for,” Iruka says softly after a minute, and Kakashi turns away.

“Perhaps you’re the only person I’m kind to.”

“I have a few dozen reasons to doubt that.” Iruka smiles to himself, imagining some memory Kakashi isn’t privy to, until he thinks to ask, “Do- do you want to talk about your dreams?”

“No, thank you. Not- not tonight.” Not ever, probably, but Iruka doesn’t pry or push, he just nods and brushes his hand against Kakashi’s own in solidarity.

“What about your worries?”

“Who told you that I had worries?”

“Call it an educated guess. Everyone has at least one worry,” Iruka says lightly, his tone allowing Kakashi the chance to evade if he wishes, but for some reason Iruka always manages to make Kakashi do things he doesn’t normally want to do.

“Just the one,” Kakashi lies before he braces himself for a moment of vulnerability. He scrounges up a piece of truth he would be willing to reveal to Iruka, and finds one that’s come unstuck in his heart in recent years. Iruka waits without judgment for him to speak.

“We live in an unkind world, under a pretty broken system,” Kakashi says, studying his hands as he grasps for the words, “and I don’t know that I’m doing my part to make it any better. I don’t know that anything I do to help will ever balance the scales against everything else I’ve done.”

“Blood can’t be unspilled,” Iruka says in agreement. “I guess we just carry on and hope that our positive deeds will have the same ripple effects as our negative ones.”

“Keep moving forward and hope we raise a generation better than our own?”

“Apologies only go so far, right? We just change what we can. But all the villages are starting to transform, so I think there’s hope for us yet. Besides, I think you’re doing a much better job than you think you are. I know you didn’t choose this position, but you’re doing what you can, and I know a lot of people can see that.”

“Did you take a poll?” Kakashi jokes.

“No, I’m just up to date on the village gossip. Anyway, even if no one else appreciates it, Tsunade-sama sure does,” Iruka says, and Kakashi chuckles. 

“I never should have let her get me into those robes.”

“At least you have someone ready and willing to take them from you someday.” Iruka grins, but then it fades into a solemn expression that catches Kakashi off-guard. “Kakashi,” he says, and Kakashi tilts his head, waiting for him to continue.

“You’ve spent your entire life filling the roles that you thought you were meant to, whether or not they were the best decisions for your own safety or sanity. I know that people like us don’t always get a choice in matters like these, but I want you to know that someday you’re going to get the chance to choose for yourself what to do with the rest of your life, and I’ll be there to support you in whatever it is. I want to be for you what you’ve been for us all these years.”

“A weapon?”

Iruka shakes his head. “An asset. A source of comfort and aid.”

His gaze remains steady in a way that cuts through Kakashi’s defenses. It’s easy to believe a man like Iruka. It’s easy to want him to mean his words.

“You’re the one who’s too kind, Iruka.”

“I’ve got a reputation to uphold,” Iruka says with a wink. “The second I retire, it’s all over for you punks.”

“Scary!”

“Don’t forget it.”

“I don’t think I could if I tried,” Kakashi says, smiling as he follows Iruka back to their bedroom.

\--

True to Iruka’s word, Naruto makes a habit of coming to visit.

He has an extremely active social life now, but he still finds the time — usually post-mission and hungry — to swing by and loaf around the house. Kakashi finds it interesting that he doesn’t really mind at all. Years of exposure to Naruto’s noise has now rendered him immune, even in his home.

It’s easy to get used to Naruto sitting at the kitchen table with them, or slumping against Iruka’s side as they watch some egregiously terrible action movie, or using clones to help scrub down the bathroom. Kakashi likes listening to him talk about frivolous things while he and Iruka do their best not to muck up dinner under his supervision. The sight of him dragging himself through the hallway while half asleep in his nightcap has become familiar. He also likes to help Kakashi water the row of plants on the windowsill before he runs out of the house. With barely any effort, he’s slotted himself into a gap Kakashi had forgotten about once he became a sensei without students.

It’s also easy to get used to Naruto dragging the rest of his team over as well, though Kakashi has a bit more difficulty with _that_ noise level. 

He returns home one weekend afternoon after some Quality Rival Time with Gai and sees Sakura, Sai and Naruto sitting with paper all over his floor. Iruka is sitting at the table going through some training checklists for the Academy’s new student teachers; he waves without looking up at Kakashi, who observes the room with some faux confusion.

“Why are there so many children in our house?” Kakashi asks Iruka blandly. Naruto puffs up in annoyance before his father can answer.

“You said I could come over whenever!”

“You, I understand. But these two?”

“What, are you too good for Team 7 now, Kakashi-sensei?” Sakura asks, her voice acerbic. She links her arms with Naruto and Sai, who accept the motion and stand in solidarity with her in Kakashi’s living room. It’s a touching display, and would have been more so several years ago, back when the trio kept fighting like rabid alleycats. Kakashi should probably buy Tenzou a fruit basket or ten for his hard work.

“No, not at all, I just thought youths like you would have more exciting places to hang out. But this house is always open to you for...whatever it is you’re here to do. If it’s sparring, take that to the yard.”

“Not today! We have something important to do,” Sakura says, sitting back down where she senses that Kakashi won’t toss her and the boys out.

“Most of your important work usually gets done someplace that isn’t our house,” Kakashi says, mostly to annoy her, since he has no real intention to rid himself of this trio.

Sakura shakes her head reproachfully. “I didn’t think it was smart to let these two out in public together.”

“Wait, but you and Sai fight just as much, Sakura-chan-”

“Don’t the two of you fight each other the most out of everyone we know?” Sai asks, and Naruto elbows him in the ribs.

“No sparring in the house,” Iruka says, repeating Kakashi’s words.

“We won’t! We’re doing something more, um, intellectual today.” Sakura waves at their inkwells and brushes.

“We’re writing letters to Sasuke! He never writes back, but he’s getting them, and that’s what matters.”

“What did you write in yours?” Sai asks, trying to catch a peek at Naruto’s letter, but he shields it with his arms.

“It’s private!”

“You’re more protective of your letters than I am,” Sakura laughs. “Did you figure out what to write, Sai?”

“Nope.”

“Tell him you miss him,” Naruto suggests.

“But I don’t.”

“Ugh, Sai! Just draw something nice then!”

“...does he like birds?”

Naruto frowns. “I mean, probably not? Sasuke likes justice and walking around. Oh, and tomatoes.”

“He doesn’t hate them, though,” Sakura counters without looking up from her own letter. “He renamed his group — the one Karin-chan was in — after a bird.”

“Then I’ll draw him a bird,” Sai decides, and Naruto claps him on the back.

“Sounds good- wait, what are you adding- that better not be an explosive tag, Sai! Sai!!”

“Explosions stay outside the house,” Iruka tells them, finally looking up from his work. “Actually, you should move to the porch anyway. It’s a nice day. You can have some snacks when you’re done writing.”

“Yes, Iruka-sensei,” they chorus together, even Sai, and Iruka pats him kindly on the back on his way to the attic.

Kakashi watches their slow and ineffective migration to the engawa, and has to look away several times so they don’t catch him laughing when they spill ink all over Sakura’s letter and she yells at them about having to start over. The boys each try to blame the other before they realize that a united front is more powerful. Kakashi would still bet on Sakura winning, though.

Their conversation flows into some new, equally inane topic which Kakashi is only half-conscious of as he watches them yell and laugh like they don’t have a care in the world.

Minato-sensei told him once, after Obito, after Rin, that one day Kakashi would allow himself the right to be happy again. And at the time it had seemed impossible, unforgivable, even. How could he be happy when he buried another shattered piece of his heart with each precious comrade’s body? How could he ever learn to love again when he already excised all the rotting parts of himself that were capable of it? And how dare Minato-sensei say such a thing when he was the next to leave Kakashi behind?

Now, he thinks he understands.

He chooses to sit down at the table to read once his husband returns from the attic with a stack of old notebooks to cross-reference in his checklist. Time passes in that soft, honey-slow way that it does on pleasant afternoons, and before he knows it, the kids are clamoring for food.

“Ah, there’s a melon in the refrigerator,” Iruka says, and Kakashi automatically stands to go fetch it before Naruto comes barreling past.

“Do you even know where the cleaver is?” Kakashi asks him, and Naruto rolls his eyes, no doubt thinking about the time he almost dropped an entire pot of rice in the sink.

“Kakashi-sensei,” Naruto sighs, taking the watermelon out. “It’s just a melon. I can take care of it!”

“I trust you,” Kakashi says blithely, patting him on the head and smiling when he just huffs and marches away to join his team on the engawa with his fruit. The fading sunlight falls on his golden hair in a way that brings back all of Kakashi’s old ghosts.

Sometimes Kakashi wonders what their lives would have been like if he had been able to take responsibility for Naruto as a child, like he should have done. Would he have been able to handle it, raising this irrepressible sunbeam of a boy all on his own? Would they have been able to fix the broken pieces of each other or would they each only have curdled and shuttered further, Kakashi unable to handle the weight of raising his teacher’s legacy and Naruto unable to flourish under the care of someone who didn’t know how to love properly?

It’s hard to imagine that Naruto wouldn’t have been better off without an adult around to actually care for and raise him, but it’s equally hard to imagine Naruto as any better than he already is. Though, any sensible person would reason that it wasn’t the loneliness and fear of abandonment that made Naruto into the kindhearted soul that he is. It really was a blessing that Naruto and Iruka found each other when they did, even if it was years later than it should have been.

All Kakashi can do now, years later, is offer him the sharp, grubby, undergrown love that his kintsugi heart can hold, and the knowledge of how to lead their people when the time comes. 

“I think he’s solved the puzzle of the melon,” Iruka says, shaking Kakashi from his thoughts. “Let’s go steal a slice.” He puts his pen down and tugs Kakashi along with him to go bully the children into giving up some fruit. Sai relinquishes it without a moment’s hesitation, despite Naruto’s protests, and they all sit there in peace enjoying the cool sweetness at the tail end of a warm day.

Kakashi gets distracted by the tiny pile of seeds Iruka is poking out with a senbon from who knows where, until he explains that he’s gathering them for some questionable school purpose.

“But, y’know, you should really ask Ino out before someone else beats you to it, Sakura-chan,” Naruto is saying around his rind when Kakashi tunes back in. Sai nods, and then ducks to dodge as Sakura wails at them, “Shut up, shut _up!_ Not in front of our sensei!”

“We didn’t hear anything, Sakura,” Iruka assures her in a baldfaced lie. “But Ino’s popularity in the inpatient ward has been rising recently. They say one of the medical-nin who graduated a few years before you, Yuta-kun, seems very interested in her,” he mentions offhand as he gathers Sai’s pile of carefully poked out seeds into his own. 

“Who is ‘they?’” Kakashi asks with moderate interest as Sakura’s wailing increases in volume and the boys try to placate her.

“Oh, you know. People,” Iruka replies vaguely. He doesn’t crack a smile as the frantic gossip picks up around them, but he does wink at Kakashi without giving up a hint of emotion before returning to his pile of seeds.

Kakashi finds the entire situation delightfully entertaining, but Iruka’s deadpan dedication to provoking their students is the cherry on top. 

“While you’re here, Sakura, why don’t you ask Naruto for advice?” Kakashi says brightly. Naruto looks like he isn’t sure if he should be proud or embarrassed, and Iruka is clearly trying not to laugh about it.

“That’s true, even this loser has a girlfriend, so it’s a bad sign that you haven’t gotten anywhere yet, Sakura,” Sai says placidly. Both his teammates take extreme umbrage to this statement, and soon they’re clashing all over the yard.

Iruka watches them with immeasurable amusement, and takes the chance to swipe another piece of watermelon. He makes a shushing motion when Kakashi tuts in disapproval, and shoves a slice into Kakashi’s hand.

“There. Now we’re accomplices,” he says triumphantly, and it’s all so silly that Kakashi has to laugh.

“Mutually assured destruction? Might as well enjoy it then.”

“Exactly.” 

He offers Kakashi a smug grin, and then catches a stray shuriken without looking and immediately hops off the engawa to go yell about irresponsible sparring practices. Kakashi sits back and enjoys the free show. 

And for just the briefest second, when Iruka glances back at him and makes the most indignant face as he pries Sakura and Sai apart, Kakashi feels an ache right in the center of his chest that fades as quickly as it came.

How curious.


End file.
